


Steadfast Defiance of Biology (with Dicks)

by preblematic



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Blow Jobs, Bodyswap, Crying, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Exhibitionism, F/M, Face-Fucking, Feelings Jams, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Oral Fixation, Sibling Incest, Threesome - F/M/M, Threesome - M/M/M, Warped Tour 2005, a teddy bear named barnabas, mild telepathy, this is the version with porn, who is actually super important to the plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-28 20:17:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 48,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6343711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preblematic/pseuds/preblematic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about three dudes breaking each others' hearts relentlessly under the summer sun. They're all pretty okay with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Happening Again

**Author's Note:**

> this is the version of this fic that has porn, for the version without porn, [go here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6297892)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic has been in the works for a super long time. I currently have 16k of it written, which i'll post over the next month as i edit it. the ending is still not written so~~

Mikey's first thought upon waking up is that he must have fallen asleep in his glasses again. His next thought is that he really needs to stop doing that; he always ends up with uncomfortable dents in his head and smudges that can't be removed by anything short of witchcraft.

He's in a real bed. There's a warm body pressed up against his side. He remembers that they have a two day window of breathing room right now, before they have to head out again. He and Gerard must have--

Except, he remembers, he and Gerard didn't do anything last night besides scream at each other, and not in the fun, orgasmy way. He and Gerard had gotten into a fight--fuck, it had been about all the people flirting with Mikey. The whole tour has a break, so obviously people were socializing, congregated outside and inside busses, drinking and smoking, trading stories and stashes.

Gerard had gotten pissy about it, like he sometimes did. Normally Mikey would have just drunk, said no to everyone who propositioned him, and hung out with Gerard until they felt like leaving, going to the rooms they could afford now, but he'd been an idiot last night.

He’d really wanted to find somebody, a girl, something casual, a nice change of pace, and Gerard didn't want him to. Mikey had even suggested the old fallback of, “Well you can come, too,” to no avail. So Mikey had stayed and drank and brooded and steadily gotten more pissed at his brother.

They'd gotten into a shouting match once they got to the hotel, and, thinking back on it, he _really_ hopes no one had overheard it, or at least didn't understand what it meant. Mikey had been too out of it to remember discretion. He had called Gerard a perverted motherfucker, thrown every venomous word he could think of at his brother. Fuck. He'd fucked up. He knew how easy it was for this whole thing to make Gerard spiral out of control again, and he still hadn't managed to keep his goddamn mouth shut.

And then he'd gone and he'd--Frank had been the first person he ran into after he'd stormed away from Gerard, out into the hallways of the hotel, and Mikey hadn’t cared that he had wanted a girl, had been just drunk enough and mad at Gerard enough that it seemed like the best idea in the world to fist his hand in Frank's shirt and kiss him full on the mouth.

He doesn't remember whose room they went to or who they must have kicked out--they had three rooms between the five of them, and Mikey had thought Bob was the one rooming alone. Mikey had totally fallen into the cliche of 'I slept with your best friend.'

He's glad that today is a free day. It means he can take his time getting back to the bus. Which translates to mean that he can hide from his problems for as long as possible. Mikey sighs and reaches up to take his glasses off, but he only succeeds in hitting himself in the face. He's not wearing glasses. He blinks; the world stays in focus.

"I'm cured!" he exclaims, only it doesn't come out in his voice. He slaps a hand over his mouth in shock; it's not his hand. It's covered in familiar tattoos. The person in bed next to him shifts.

Mikey looks over, both expecting and dreading what he's going to see. Sure enough, his own face is smushed up against his shoulder, which he now knows to be Frank's shoulder. Looks like he didn't fall asleep in his glasses after all. Whoopdeedoo.

"Fuck," he breathes. He slumps his head back against the pillow and stares at the ceiling for a moment. He stretches the hand that Frank--Mikey?--isn't lying on out in front of him and flexes it. It's such a surreal feeling to see the tattoos respond to him. He pinches himself; he doesn't wake up.

He contemplates if he should wake Frankie up. He probably should. They need to discuss this.  Whatever _this_ is.

Mikey has already decided that they're not telling the other guys. No way. Because Gerard would try to suss out the cause, and that, inevitably, would lead to him finding out about this, about how Frank now knows the noises Mikey makes when he rides a dick. It would destroy him.

He grinds the palm of his--Frank's?--hand into his--Franks???--eyes to dispel the thoughts. Gerard is not going to find out. Mikey is going too make sure of that. Mikey is going to threaten Frank with castration, torture, and death if he so much as mentions his name and sex in the same conversation.

With a vague script in his head, Mikey bites the bullet and starts to wake Frank. He starts by saying his name a few times. When that doesn't work, he switches to poking him incessantly in the face. When one finger accidentally goes up his nose, Frank snorts(Mikey is struck by how unattractive his own face looks when he does that) and opens his--Mikey's??????--eyes.

When he sees his own face staring back at him, his eyes widen, and then he squints because Mikey's eyes suck. "What the fuck," Frank says. "What. The. Fuck." God, it's so weird to hear his own voice like that. Secretly, Mikey is relieved that it _is_ Frank in his body. A small part of him had been worried that he was actually Frank and had just lost his mind.

"So, uh, I think we pissed off the universe," Mikey supplies. His own hand comes up and starts pawing at his face. "Dude, what the fuck?"

"This is such a trip," Frank answers. He pinches Mikey's cheek.

"Ow! Dude, your nerves _do_ work," Mikey assures him. He swats the hand away from his face. “I can't believe I fucked you--that's never happening again, by the way.”

Frank ignores him. "We have to tell the others!" He says, sounding much too excited for Mikey's taste.

"No! We don't!" Mikey says, grabbing Frank's wrist as he goes to get out of the bed.

"Why not?" Frank asks. Before Mikey can answer, Frank switches gears," Dude, did you know you're blind?" he asks, leaning in close to Mikey's face.

"Hold on, let me find my glasses," Mikey says. He carefully climbs out of the bed and searches for his glasses, being extra careful not to step on anything. He finds them on the floor beside the nightstand, like he'd tried to put them on the table but missed. He hands them to Frank.

Frank puts them on like they might bite him. "Oh god," he says. "These are filthy, how do you live?" Mikey shrugs.

Frank takes the glasses and cleans then with the bed sheet as best he can; they are only marginally improved. He looks his body up and down from angles he’s never been able to see before. This is weird, and the fact that he’s getting kind of turned on by it is probably weirder. “So, uh,” he says,” you wanna make out with yourself?”

Mikey’s head snaps toward Frank. “ I--” he stutters out. He shouldn't; he _really_ shouldn't. Mikey’s always been a weak man. “Fuck yes.” Mikey scrambles into his lap, and he’s satisfied by how well he fits there. He’s always found himself to fit awkwardly in this position; Frank’s body is just the right size.

Frank's never kissed himself before, obviously. It's surprisingly like kissing anyone else. Mikey is pushy and bites at his lips in a way he's not used to; the list of guys that Frank has fucked isn't very long. Mikey’s rough. He pulls Frank’s hair and bites at every opportunity. If he just kisses harder, pulls more, digs his nails into Frank’s shoulder at just the right angle, then all his problems will just go away. He’s sure of it.

Frank grabs Mikey’s--¿Frank’s?--ass and pulls his hips down. The hotel sheet is doing absolutely nothing to disguise the fact that Frank is totally up for round two. Mikey groans and breaks the kiss.

He leans his forehead against Frank’s. ”Fuck I said we wouldn't do this again,” he pants.

“To be fair,” Frank says,” you said we wouldn't _fuck_ again.” Mikey exercises a moment of rare self control and climbs off of Frank. Frank sighs, and Mikey starts looking for his clothes.

"And that's another thing,” Mikey says,” do you wanna talk about how you fucked me last night or no?" he asks, rifling through the clothes on the floor. "Are these yours or mine?" he holds up a pair of boxers.

"Mine," Frank answers. Mikey puts them on. "I dunno, do you wanna talk about it?" He takes the shirt Mikey hands him and goes to put it on. "Why are you so goddamn long?" he says, getting tangled in the fabric and knocking his glasses askew.

"That's what your mom said," Mikey snaps back. He finds pants on the floor. "It's not going to happen again,” he repeats, telling it to himself as much as Frank. His jeans and Frank's jeans look exactly the same, so it's not until he's got four inches of extra fabric hanging off his feet that he realizes these are _his_ pants. So he can't wear them. Man, this is confusing.

"Yeah, okay," Frank answers.

"And whatever you do, don't tell Gerard," Mikey warns.

"Dude, I'm not gonna tell your big brother I fucked your ass, which, by the way, I did a great fucking job. You feel great this morning, if you were wondering." Mikey rolls his eyes.

Frank gets out of bed and joins Mikey by the clothes pile. "So, why are we being so calm about this?" he asks as Mikey hands him his--Mikey's--pants. "It seems like we should be, I dunno, flipping some shit or something."

"That's unsanitary," Mikey replies; Frank elbows him. Mikey does a cursory search for their socks before giving it up as a lost cause. "I dunno, man. I figure it'll sort itself out, right? This kind of shit has to have a time limit."

"So we just wait it out?"

"That's my plan, yeah."

"Well you're the nerd," Frank concedes with a shrug.

Frank succeeds in the sock search where Mikey failed, and after they both have their shoes on Mikey knows he's running out of time to think up excuses. "So why aren't we telling Gee and Ray?" Frank asks, as if on cue.

"Uh," Mikey stalls,"because we don't want them to know about us fucking?" He hopes Frank can't hear the question mark on the end of that.

"How would they find out from this?"

"Because something tells me that's what caused it; so it's bound to come up eventually." Man, Mikey's glad he's a great liar.

"Right,” Frank says skeptically, but he leaves it.

\----

"God it's so weird to see the world from down here."

"Fuck you, mikeyway," Frank shoots back.

"No seriously," Mikey presses," I'm starting to understand you a little bit more. I'd go crazy too if I had to look up at everyone all the time."

"You're lucky that your antelope legs take all my concentration to maneuver, or I would beat your shit right now." As if to illustrate his point, Frankie stumbles in his awkward gait. "Seriously why are your limbs so hard to control?"

Mikey wants to say that it's probably all the drugs. He doesn't."Uh, I'm in your body," he reminds him instead. "You'd really only be hurting yourself." Frank opens his mouth to retort, but slowly closes it again when he can't think of anything. They enter the hotel elevator in silence.

They’re ten feet away from the bus when Mikey sighs and stops walking. He never claimed to be good at facing his problems. Frank looks over at the sound and raises an eyebrow. It's something that Mikey knows he himself does all the time, and yet it's also the most expressive that Mikey's ever seen his own face. 'What's on the inside' and all that.

"'S'up, dude?" Frank asks.

"Listen, so, there's--if you're gonna be me," he starts. Frank nods, understanding that this is something very important. "If you're gonna be me and want to still be friends with me when this is all over and also not break Gerard's dramatic little heart, I need to tell you something."

"Shit dude," Frank says," are you about to drop some kind of brotherly secret on me? Some sibling knowledge? Do you to have a bro code I need to be aware of? Some kind of sacred rules?"

"Dude, calm down," Mikey says, resting a hand on Frank's shoulder. Motherfucker's bouncing. Mikey has to reach up to do it, and that's the trippiest thing. "How much did being an only child fuck up your head?"

"How much did being the youngest fuck up yours?" Frank jokes back. Mikey forces a laugh; if only Frank knew. Well, he was about to anyway.

"Listen just--" Frank leans forward, Mikey's own face and eyes forming a familiar yet foreign show of interest. "Just don't be alone with him until this is all over," Mikey finishes. It's just--it's not his secret alone to tell; he'll just have to do his best to keep it.

Frank blinks back at him slowly. "Uh, okay? How, exactly? I mean I can try, but you two are basically conjoined twins."

"Listen just--we got into a fight last night." Mikey shoves his hands in the pockets of Frankie's jeans and stares at the sidewalk. He scuffs his shoe against the ground like a six year old forced to apologize. He still feels like shit about it. "A real fight, a screaming-and-bringing-shit-up-from-our-childhoods fight."

"Oh fuck," Frank whispers.

"Yeah," Mikey agrees. "And if I know Gee--" If he knows his brother, then as soon as Gerard sees him--or his body anyway--he's going to drag him off for a feelings jam and makeup sex. And while Mikey is all for fixing what he did last night; he doesn't think that scaring Frank away from the band will really help.

"If I know Gee he's gonna want to talk about it," Mikey settles on. "And I--don't feel comfortable with you being my bodysnatcher stand-in for a fight with my brother, sorry." He tries to keep his tone light, it's surprisingly easy with Frank's voice.

Frank shrugs. "Fair enough," he agrees.

\---

"We've arrived!" Frank exclaims, clambering his way up the bus steps. He ends up with is front half sprawled on the floor and his feet hanging off the bus. Mikey climbs over him, struggling with his suddenly shorter limbs. They need to have a talk about staying in character.

"Goddamn, are you two still drunk," Bob asks from the couch.

"Where have you been?" Ray asks at the same time.

"We've been out," Mikey answers.

Ray snorts. "Whatever. Hey. Mikey," Mikey raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement; Frank finally manages to scramble to his feet.

"And not drunk!" Frank says," Hungover! I'm gonna drink a gallon of water and pass out." He fills the largest glass they have with water and starts to down it.

Ray raises his eyebrows at Mikey and gestures to Frank in a what-is-this motion. "Uh, Mikey?"he tries again. Frank keeps chugging. " Mike-y, Mikey Way," Ray tries again, snapping his fingers in Frank's direction.

Mikey, in an effort to save their entire plan, whacks Frank in the arm. He chokes and splutters. "Mikey," he says, gesturing his head slightly towards Ray and Bob, who are looking at each other in confusion," Ray is talking to you."

Frank looks over at Ray. "Right, me. Mikey. Mikey Way. Michael James Way, brother of Gerard Way, that is me." The other three men stare at him. Frank coughs. "Uh, yes?"

"Right," Ray says," speaking of your brother, he was freaking out like none other last night. He came to our room in hysterics--

“I thought he'd fallen off the wagon,” Bob cuts in,” that bad.” Ray nods in solemn agreement.

“He's in the bunks right now; you should really go talk to him."

Frank and Mikey exchange panicked looks and a quick series of unhelpful facial expressions. "Uh," Frank says. "Yeah, I should--do that. Yes."

"A nap sounds like a fucking great plan," Mikey pipes up. "I'm gonna steal that, uh, plan." He picks his way across the room toward the bunks. He awkwardly fingerguns as he goes through the door.

Frank is left alone with Ray and Bob. "So what's up with you two?" Ray asks," You just disappeared last night."

"Uh, I should probably go check on Gerard, my brother. My brother Gerard," Frank trails off. "I'm gonna--go do that." He hurries away into the bunk area.

Gerard is awake and talking to Mikey-Frank. He perks up when he sees Frank-Mikey. Mikey looks terrified.

"Hey!" Gerard calls to Frank. "Mikes, I uh," he trails off, eyes darting to Mikey. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Frank gulps and looks to Mikey for help. Mikey shrugs. He goes to climb into his bunk, realizes it’s his bunk, and climbs into Frank's bunk. He's going to eaves drop like a motherfucker and try to run damage control.

Gerard motions Frank over toward him; Frank reluctantly goes. "Hey," Gerard says in a hushed tone. He reaches out and rests a hand gently on Frank's arm. He runs his thumb in little circles on his shoulder. Frank is suddenly uncomfortable.

"Listen," Gerard continues," I know I was unreasonable last night, and--"

"I don't want to talk about this right now," Frank says quickly. Gerard's face falls. Frank continues. "I feel like shit right now. I just want to sleep for a while."

"Oh," Gerard says, looking down dejectedly. "Okay, Mikes. We'll talk later though?"

"Uh, we'll see." In lieu of an answer, Gerard pulls the curtain closed and rolls over in his bunk to face the wall. Frank slumps.

Mikey's (Frank's) head pops out of the bunk curtains. He raises his eyebrows. Frank shrugs helplessly and motions toward the closed bunk. Mikey waves Frank over to him.

"What happened?" Mikey asks quietly.

"I was evasive and standoffish?" Frank answers at the same volume. "I don't know how to be you; you won't even tell me what the fight was about."

"I can't!" Mikey insists, still keeping his voice low enough to not be heard over the ambient bus noise. "It's--I really can't, Frankie. I really can't." He looks at Frank imploringly. "Just, tell him that I'm sorry, okay? Tell him I'm sorry."

Frank's not really sure what to do in this situation. He wants to give Mikey a hug, but he's not sure whether or not hugging his own body would finally make this Too Weird. He settles on saying,"Okay, dude," and doing some sort of comforting head pat.

"Get the fuck off," Mikey says, pushing Frank's (Mikey's) hand away with a smile. Frank sticks his tongue out at him. "I was serious about crashing for a couple hours," Mikey adds.

"Is that you telling me to fuck off?", Frank asks.

"Pretty much, yeah." Mikey rolls onto his back and stares at the bunk ceiling. "And Frankie? Tell him I'm sorry."

"I will, mikeyway."

\----

Frank can't sleep. He cannot. He's tried everything from counting sheep to progressive muscle relaxation. He can't sleep. He doesn't know what time it is; there are no windows in the bunk area. They're still driving.

He found a sudoku book in one corner of the bunk, piled with half a dozen pill bottles and a ratty teddy bear in a pirate’s hat. He's been busying himself with that. Not with actually playing sudoku, no, he's not ready for that, but Mikey seems to have invented his own rules, and Frank's spent the last however long trying to figure them out.

He's startled out of his contemplation of two nines in the same column by a scream of his own name followed by a thud. He sits straight up and whacks his head on the bunk ceiling. He curses and sticks his head out of the bunk to investigate.

"Frankie what the fuck?!" Comes Ray's voice out of his own bunk.

"Sorry!" Mikey exclaims. "Uh, nightmare," is his weak explanation.

"Drink some warm milk and go the fuck back to sleep," Bob demands.

Mikey makes a noncommittal noise. Frank hears him moving around in the aisle. Moments later, the curtain to Frank's (Mikey's) bunk is pulled open, and his own face is staring at him in the darkness. It's unnerving.

"Frankie!" Mikey hisses, quiet yet panicked. "I can't play guitar!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'll hopefully update this fic regularly. [ follow my tumblr to get updates and send me prompts.](http://preblematic.tumblr.com/)


	2. Maybe Once More

"Okay, shit, okay, so we'll figure this out,"Frank declares, pacing back and forth in the small floorspace. "We'll--I'll give you lessons or something or--"

"Frankie," Mikey says from the couch,"breathe, okay? Breathe. And stop pacing!"

Frank slumps down next to Mikey. "I want my guitar," he says miserably. Everything makes more sense with her in his hands. But then, she wouldn’t be in  _ his _ hands, anyway. He starts to panic.

"What if this doesn't fix itself?" he says. "What if we're stuck like this forever? What if I never get to play the guitar again? What if we have to break up the band? What if--"

Mikey rests a hand on Frank's shoulder and snaps him out of his panic. "Frank, Frankie," he says," it'll be alright."

"You don't know that!" Frank insists, voice rising. He doesn't know what's happening, he can't shake this fear. This thought that everything he's ever worked for is going to come crumbling down around them.

They'll never switch back. Either Mikey will have to learn guitar, or they'll have to publicly switch roles. Frank loves his guitar; he can't give her up. They'll have to break up the band. Gerard will find out that Frank slept with his baby brother and hunt him down, but Frank will still be in Mikey's body so Gerard will have to kill his own brother, and Frank will never get to fuck Gerard. Because Frank will be  _ dead _ . He can't breathe.

"What's happening?" he asks Mikey, because that seems the logical thing to do. He can't breathe! He doesn't want Gerard to kill him; he doesn't want Gerard to have to kill him. Angry fans will come after him for breaking up their favorite band. Frank starts crying.

"I'm sorry!" he says, curling in on himself. "I'm sorry I ruined everything." He's breathing in great panting gasps, babbling nonsense at lightspeeds, sobbing into his jeans.

"Frankie," Mikey says softly, he slowly rests a hand on Franks shoulder. "Frankie I think you're having a panic attack." That just makes Frank heave faster.

"Shh, shh, it's okay," Mikey says. "Frank, Frankie, look at me, can you do that? Can you look at me?"

Frank brings watery eyes up to his own face. "Good that's good that's fine. I need you to breathe for me, okay?" Frank's sporadic breaths increase in speed. "No not like that! Deep breaths, here, like this." He takes a deep, slow breath in example; Frank mimics him.

"Good that's good, keep doing that,' Mikey instructs. "I need you to stay quiet, too, or you'll wake everyone up, again."

Frank says nothing in answer, but leans heavily against Mikey’s side. Mikey wraps a short arm around his own thin shoulders, and they sit there for a long while, breathing deep breaths in sync. Frank rests his head on Mikey's shoulder; Mikey kisses his hair. It seems like the right thing to do.

"You did it the first time,” are Frank's first words after the long silence.

"Did what?" Mikey asks.

"You told me not to wake everyone up again, but you did it the first time!"

Mikey takes a moment to process this. "Yeah I did," he admits. "I freaked out a little bit and landed on the floor, but that's beside the point. This'll all work out, okay?” He squeezes Frank's shoulder comfortingly. “Bodyswaps are never permanent."

"Where are you getting this information from?" Franks demands.

"Everyone would be pissed!" Mikey says, which offers Frank no explanation. "It's just unreasonable. No, a bodyswap lasts for a single story arc, maybe two at the most."

"Oh my god, are you using comic book logic on this situation?" Frank demands. Mikey shrugs. "I can't believe you!"

"Hey, it's the best reference we have. Unless we ate some sketchy fortune cookies and forgot about it."

Frank groans, burying his face in his hands. "You did not just reference Freaky Friday," he says. Mikey shrugs.

"So what just happened to me?" Frank asks next. "I felt like I was having a heart attack and an asthma attack at the same time."

"It was a panic attack I think," Mikey says. "I get them all the time."

"I've never gotten one!" Frank says.

"Well congrats on that," Mikey says. "Welcome to the club, I guess."

"It's a shitty club."

"I agree."

"Why do you think I suddenly~?"

"I don't know," Mikey answers. "Except maybe--" he looks up at Frank quizzically," brains are physical, right?"

"Uh, yeah, last time I checked."

"Well," Mikey says," emotions are just chemical reactions. Maybe--maybe all my fucked up brain wiring didn't, uh, follow me?"

"Oh shit," Franks says.

"I guess we just wait and see?" Mikey offers.

"Yeah, we seem to be doing a lot of that."

\----

It's safe to say that Gerard is pissed off.Mikey had woken up everyone on the bus last night by screaming, which was doubly annoying for Gerard because he had just gotten back to sleep after Frank woke everyone up by screaming. When he tried to see what was wrong--talk to Mikey, give him a hug, be his goddamn  _ brother _ \--Mikey wouldn't speak to him. He wouldn't speak to anyone except Frank. Frank’s been distant. His answer was evasive, panicked when Gerard tried to ask what was going on with him and Mikey.

This morning, Mikey had seen Gerard first thing, and he’d screamed and run to lock himself in the bathroom. Gerard had tried to talk to him, but, again, Mikey wouldn’t speak to anyone but Frank. Frank apologized profusely, especially to Gerard, and kicked everyone else off the bus not long after. It's been a few hours; Gerard hasn't seen Mikey since then.

He’s following Ray around; Ray and Bob are hanging out with Patrick, and Patrick is hanging out with Pete, and Pete is hanging out with Travie. Thus, by extension, Gerard could possibly say that he is hanging out with Patrick and Pete and Travie, but really he's just sitting on the ground, smoking and brooding.

The air is less acrid down here. Smelling more of cigarettes and tire rubber than gasoline and BO. The lesser of two evils is still evil, unfortunately.

There's a noise next to him, and he looks over. Pete Wentz has sat next to him for god knows what reason. They're really not on good speaking terms right now. He feels for the guy, really. Gerard's been in love with Mikey for years, and he’s fallen in and out of love with Frank every three months since he’s known the guy. He knows this isn’t Pete's fault.

That being said, he's a little pissed at Mikey for allowing it. He keeps telling Gerard that Pete knows it's not going to last, but Pete's face keeps telling Gerard that he thinks if he wishes hard enough then he and Mikey will ride off into the sunset on a tour bus. Maybe they can get a dog and a picket fence and adopt 2.5 kids and live happily ever fucking after without Gerard anywhere near them.

Gerard's been milking the big brother act for all it's worth, so Pete  _ has _ to know that Gerard's not the most friendly toward him right now. Gerard blows the smoke in his lungs out into Pete's face, just in case the memo hadn't gotten to him yet. Pete coughs. Gerard smiles almost imperceptibly. "What do you want, Wentz?" he asks. "Mikey's--busy right now."

"Oh, I know," Pete says. Gerard is surprised. “Ray told me he and Frank have cooked something up."

Gerard spares a moment to silently thank god for Ray Toro. Whatever is happening with Mikey and Frank right now, Pete does not need to know. "Then why are you here?"

"Maybe I just wanna talk to you, ever think of that?" Gerard glares. Pete raises his hands in surrender. "Okay, you caught me. I'm a nosy motherfucker; I know you and Mikes--"

"Don't call him that."

"--got into a fight last night." Gerard's comment goes ignored. "And I wanted to know what could make the Way brothers scream at each other like angry spouses."

Gerard snorts. If only Pete knew how close he was hitting. "What makes you think that I'd tell you?" he asks. "Did you miss the part where I don't like you very much right now?”

"Just--it wasn't me, right?" Pete asks. "Please tell me it wasn't me, because, I promise, if this whole--thing," he makes a vague hand gesture," is fucking with you and Mikey's relationship, I'll end it. Full stop. No pining no self destruction, none of my shit."

Gerard raises an eyebrow. He can feel the heat of his cigarette getting closer and closer to his fingers; he lets it burn. "Why would you care?" he asks.

"Have you ever seen something," Pete starts, and Gerard knows he's in for some pure, unpasteurized Wentz Wisdom© now," like in a store, or met someone, and you know--you know you could have it. You could have them. You could pull it out of its glass display or their safety net and have them. They're--it's everything you've ever wanted, and you--you can have it.

"But you know that if you do you're going to break it." Pete tucks his knees up against his chest and stares ahead. Gerard is suddenly uncomfortable. " You're clumsy. You broke grandma's vase when you were thirteen and should've known better. You broke that girl's heart when you were twenty three and didn't care. You break things, and sooner or later you have to take it to be fixed, but sometimes no one knows how to fix them." He goes quiet," You have to throw them out.

"So you start checking, making sure--making sure someone can fix all the damage you leave in your massive fucking wake. So the last thing you want to do," he rests the side of his head on his knees and looks at Gerard," is shoot the repairman."

Gerard thinks for a moment, deciphers Pete’s rambling. He takes the last drag off his cigarette and lets it sit in his lungs for a moment. He meditates on how much of an asshole he wants to be. He could solve The Pete Problem right here, right now. There would probably be a few suspicious songs on Fall Out Boy's next album, but beyond that, it would be over. Mikey certainly wouldn't go after Pete.

He watches the smoke make its way up into the clouds and slumps back against the bus tire behind him. He's an asshole, but he's not a liar. "Pete," he says, staring up at the summer sky," as much as I'd like to take you up on that convoluted offer, it wasn't about you. Well--it was sort of about you in the sense that I maybe called him a cock chasing drug whore, but that's the closest it came." He shrugs and snubs out his cigarette on the tire rim.

"Dude, harsh," Pete says.

"Whatever, he deserved it," Gerard says. "He probably doesn't remember anyway." He thinks this will be the end of it, that Pete will leave him alone now, but Pete just remains sitting silently next to Gerard for the next few minutes.

"I really do like him," he says eventually. "Mikey, he--he gets me like a lot of people don't. We're broken the same way, we're both falling apart and trying to tape ourselves together with chewing gum and pills. Except--"

"Except  _ you _ take  _ your _ pills, and don't wash them down with booze," Gerard finishes.

"Yeah."

\----

Frank has been hiding in the bathroom. Human contact seems to trick his eyes into seeing things. People don’t look like people. He saw Gerard this morning, or he’s pretty sure it was Gerard. Their face was melting, twisting. He’d screamed, and the world had gone back to normal, until he saw Ray, and the whole process started again.

That was how he’d ended up locking himself in the bathroom. Mikey’s glasses are on the counter; frank had taken them off so he could grind the palms of his hands into his eye sockets, see sparks behind his eyelids. It hadn't helped much. 

Frank startles when there's knock on the door. "Frankie? I sent them all away, okay? I'm sorry if this is hard, but I need to to come to me."

Frank has been digging his nails into his neck over and over and over and over and over, to ground him, and it didn't hurt until he stopped. So he starts again. He has to pull himself off the floor with one hand on the counter, but there’s a shadow of a man looming over the counter. He pulls his hand back like he's been burned and crawls to the door.

He opens it, and Mikey is standing there, looking thankfully, blessedly normal and human. "Mikey, Mikey," his free hand comes out to clutch desperately at Mikey's wrists," I don't know what's wrong with me, fuck--with you. I--"

"It's okay Frankie, they're gone now," Mikey says. "It's okay." He shifts to be holding Frank's hands and helps him up, before leading him into the front area.

Frank is hesitant to let go of Mikey's hands, but Mikey convinces him. When he does, Frank holds one shaking hand out in front of himself and examines it.

"I feel like I'm being nailed to a cross," he says," by my skull." He wraps his arms tightly around himself, still shaking. He doesn't notice that stubby fingernails are leaving angry red crescents in his biceps until Mikey gently pulls a hand away and hold it in his own.

"Frankie," Mikey says," Frankie look at me." Frank does, and it's such a surreal experience to be staring down at his own face. "I think you're--I'm--my body is crashing," Mikey finally spits out," and it's probably manic, do you understand?"

Frank really doesn't. All his health problems were in his guts and his lungs; this is new territory for him. He nods anyway.

"Okay, good. Sit down." Mikey guides Frank to sit on the couch.

“No, no, Mikey, I can't!” Frank insists, looking at the couch in fear. He shakes his head firmly.

“Why not? What’s wrong?” There’s a spider on the couch. Frank can see it scuttling around. It's huge and black and hairy. Frank points at it, unsure how Mikey is missing it. 

Mikey stares blankly at the spot Frank points to. “Frankie, what?” he asks, looking back to Frank’s face. He’s clearly terrified of something. “Wait, fuck, you're hallucinating, aren't you? Don’t answer that of course you are.”

The spider moves again, coming forward on the couch. Frank can see it so clearly, see the way its fangs twitch, see its eyes move. It's such a contrast to everything around it, which is blurry and out of focus. Frank thinks maybe that means it can't be real. 

“Frankie,” Mikey says. Frank turns to look at him, shooting furtive glances toward the couch. He doesn't want the spider to move without him knowing. Mikey grabs one of Frank’s--his own--large hands in both of his own. “Listen, stay here for a minute. I'll be right back; I'm going to fix this." Mikey couldn't say why he does it, but he presses a kiss to Frank's knuckles before he leaves. It seems like the right thing to do.

Mikey disappears into the bunk area for a few moments. Frank has the fleeting thought that he's walked straight out of existence, but Frank's familiar, tattooed body is back before the terror of that thought can sink in.

"Take these," Mikey tells Frank. He presses two different colored pills into his own hand (God that's weird to think), and offers a bottle of something to swallow them with.

"Why? Where did you get these?" Frank asks. He starts examining the little tablets, his hand is shaking so badly that he almost drops them. "Jesus, Mikey, is this--"

"Don't ask questions just take them," Mikey answers. "The last dose is wearing off, and we don't have time for me to talk you through a comedown."

Frank looks from his shaking hand to Mikey's (his own) face. "You're doing worse than we thought," he says. "Oh, Mikey--"

"I've been holding it together!" Mikey snaps. "Now take the damn pills and teach me guitar!"

"Fine,asshole," Frank says, still joking at a time like this. "Should I really be taking these with alcohol?" Mikey gives him A Look that is somehow simultaneously more and less threatening on his own face. Frank takes the pills.

"Okay now just, stand there and wait, okay? Should feel better soon." He slumps down on the couch. Frank jerks forward instinctively, wants to warn Mikey about the arachnid bent on killing them all, but Mikey can’t see it. It’s not real. It can’t be real. Frank hopes it’s not real.

Frank slumps down on the floor, sits cross legged and curled in on himself, head in his hands. Mikey moves to settle on the floor beside him, pets the back of his neck soothingly. They sit like that, silent save for their breathing, for twenty minutes, until Frank can feel everything start to kick in.

"How do you live like this?" he asks a few moments later. His head has stopped racing, and the furniture isn't pulsating anymore. He feels warm and fuzzy and a little bit disturbed under it all.

"Barely," is Mikey's answer. That makes Frank sad. It makes him so sad; Mikey doesn't deserve this. He throws his noodly arms around Mikey and hugs him close.

"You're good," he tells Mikey. He pats him on the head, and Mikey looks up at him like he doesn't know what to do with four extra inches of Frank to contend with. Frank kisses him, because it seems like the right thing to do.

Mikey kisses back, and Frank climbs into his lap. He grounds himself with hands on Frank's hips and strains up into the kiss. Frank threads a hand through Mikey’s hair and cups Mikey's face with the other.

Mikey puts his hands on Frank's (Mikey's) shoulders and pushes him away. "What the fuck are we doing?" Mikey asks. Frank is comforted by the plural. We--he's not alone in this.

"I don't know," he admits. He kisses Mikey again. This time it's just because he wants to. He got a taste of what he wants, and now he can't stop.

Mikey rolls with it for a minute before he pushes Frank away again. "Frankie, we can't," he insists, though he doesn't want to. Mikey’s always been weak to what his body wants, even when he knows it's a bad idea. "I can't. There's too much already with Pete and Gee and--" He stops himself.

"I'm not Pete," Frank says. "I'm not looking for anything." That’s a lie. That’s the biggest lie Frank’s ever told. He would drop anything and everything in a heartbeat to be with Mikey, and he’d do the same for Gee. All they’d have to do is ask, but they never have.

He hugs Mikey tighter. "This is a totally platonic and friendly hug meant to make up for all the time I spent not noticing how shitty your life is right now." He's lying through his teeth.

"Right, and kissing me full on the mouth was what exactly?"

"Platonic might have been the wrong word there," Frank admits. He's still sitting in Mikey’s lap, and he can  _ feel  _ the hard-on trying to make itself known. He wants it, wants it bad. “What's the word for I really wanna fuck you?” He reaches down and rests a hand against the slight bulge in Mikey’s pants.

“H-horny,” Mikey answers. He does his best not to arch his hips up into Frank’s hand. He fails.

“That's the word I was looking for,” Frank says. He kisses Mikey’s neck, because he knows that his body likes that. 

Mikey whines and slumps back against the couch, rolls his hips up when Frank rolls his down. “Fran _ kie,”  _ he whines. He hates this, hates himself, hates that he's only gone a day without Gerard and he’s already so willing to break the rules again, hates the want curling in his gut.

Frank pulls away from Mikey’s neck. “You said it wasn’t happening again,” he reminds him. “You change your mind?” As much as Frank is all for this happening, he only is if Mikey is too.

“I fucking hate you,” is Mikey answer. He grabs Frank by the back of the head and kisses him again, though. Frank takes that as a go-ahead and bites at Mikey’s lips.

“Frankie, let me.” Mikey reaches between them and rubs presses against the bulge in Frank’s jeans. Frank hisses and moves his hips toward it, hands braces on Mikey’s shoulders.

“Why is that so  _ nice?” _ he asks.

“I know what I like,” Mikey answers. To prove the point, he grabs his own ass with his free hand. It’s a nice ass; it feels good in his hand. Mikey thinks he understands why Gee’s so fond of it now. Frank gasps and rolls his hips forward into Mikey’s hand, kisses up and down his jaw.

Frank gets impatient and reaches down to undo his pants. Mikey tsks at him. “Rude,” he says, but he slides his hand in to curl around his cock anyway. Frank leans forward against Mikey, mouth open against the fabric of his shirt.

“You know, the least you could do,” Mikey arches up as punctuation to his statement. Frank hums against his shoulder and fumbles to undo his pants, wraps his fingers around his cock. His grip is firmer than Mikey’s would've been, and if Mikey were in his own body he probably would have protested. As it is, it's really fucking good. Frank is immediately fast and focused, doesn't tease the pads of his fingers up the shaft like Mikey likes to do, but Mikey quickly loses focus on _what_ , exactly, he's supposed to be doing. 

Frankie jerks him off, quick and dirty and dry. “C’mon, Mikes,” he says. He bites at Mikey’s shoulder, and Mikey keens, jerks up into his fist a comes. He really lasted an embarrassingly short amount of time. Frank keeps jacking his cock until Mikey’s legs do their best to clamp down on his hand.

“Please, Frankie,” he whines. “Stop, stop, I can’t--”

Frank kisses him and stops moving his hand. “Shh,” he says close to his lips. “It’s okay.” Mikey slumps down, propped against the couch, boneless. His head lolls to one side and he tries to level out his breathing.

“Fuck,” he says, long and low.

“Mm.” Frank moves his hand from his cock, brings his wet fingers up into Mikey’s view. “Open,” he says, thumb against Mikey’s bottom lip. Mikey drops his mouth open and lets Frank push his fingers in.

Mikey’s fingers are long. He likes the way they feel in his mouth, long and probing. He always ends up shoving fingers in his mouth when he jerks off. He and Gerard have always had a fixation on things in their mouths. Gerard says it’s because their mom let them have pacifiers for too long, but Mikey thinks it’s just another one of their oddities. Gerard’s fingers were never really as good as his own, never long enough, never deep enough, but it was still good because they were attached to someone else.

Now though, now  _ Frank _ has Mikey’s fingers, and he’s using them well. Mikey takes the initiative to hold his head up, but closes his eyes and just lets his mouth hang open, tonguing at the webbing of Frank’s fingers, licking cum off his fingers. Frank runs the pads of his pointer and middle finger over the inside of his bottom lip, and Mikey whines high in his throat. Then Frank removes his fingers altogether, and Mikey actually whimpers.

“Aw,” Frank teases,” do you want something back in your mouth?” Mikey know where this is going. He’s said the exact same thing to Gee before. He nods, though; he wants it. “I’ll be happy to oblige.

Frank gets up on his knees, holding his cock in one hand and fisting the other in Mikey’s hair. Mikey licks his lips and leans in before Frank has the chance to move his head for him. They line up nicely like this; were they both in their own bodies this position would be awkward at best. As it is, Mikey is at the perfect height to wrap lips around the head of his own cock 

“Fuck, yeah,” Frank says, hips stuttering forward slightly. Mikey wraps his fingers around his own skinny hipbones and goes down as far as he can. It’s not very far. Frank’s gag reflex is a lot more active than his own, and he starts to gag after just a second. It’s fine though, Mikey prides himself on his good head.

He licks down the shaft, gives a cursory hello to his balls--which he  _ knows _ he likes, and Frank’s legs nearly give out when he does. Mikey presses feathery light kisses to his cock, licks the wetness away from the slit and makes Frank pant. He mouths, wet and teasing, at the tip. Frank is whining and pushing his hips forward in no time. 

“Mikey, Mikes, please.” Mikey hums, making Frank moan. He presses a few more kisses along the side of his cock before he indulges Frank. He wraps his lips around it and takes as much as he comfortably can into his mouth, tongue working in waves over the bottom of his shaft. One hand comes up to tease right behind his balls, and Frank keens, hunches over Mikey and comes in his own mouth.

Mikey stays, takes it like he loves to, swallows when he can. Frank pulls out of his mouth a few moments later; Mikey loves the feel of a spent cock sliding out of his mouth. His tongue runs incessantly over the inside of his lower lip. He needs to chew on something.

“That was,” Frank says, when his breathing has finally evened out,” that was fucking stellar.” Mikey hates himself, but he agrees nonetheless.  

\----

They fucked on the bus floor, didn’t even have the decency or initiative to move to the bunks. It was  _ amazing,  _ and Mikey feels terrible about it. His ass has unidentified carpet dirt on it, and his jaw aches in the best possible way and he wants to  _ shoot himself.  _

Frank notices. Mikey’s sour mood is infectious. “Dude,” Frank says, once Mikey comes back from disposing of the evidence,” you need to calm down. I think I can actually  _ feel  _ your black cloud consuming me. What’s up?” 

“We shouldn’t have done that,” Mikey says earnestly. “I feel like such a shitty human being.”

Frank pulls Mikey onto the couch next to him. “C’mon,” he says,” it's not like Pete was under any delusions that you were exclusive.” He laughs. “Can you imagine? Mikey Way in an exclusive relationship. Might be the best joke I’ve ever told.”

Mikey’s frown deepens. “Wow, you turn into a real cunt after sex,” Mikey says. Frank’s mouth drops open in shock.

“I--what?” Frank asks in confusion. He’s suddenly overcome with disgust for himself, but he doesn’t know why. “Dude, did I touch some sort of nerve? Did I do something I shouldn't have?”

Mikey is silent for a moment. He really can't explain this one. “Never mind,” he shrugs it off, with some effort. “Put some fucking clothes on. I'm gonna go get our instruments, and we're going to actually deal with what we need to, okay?"

"Okay," Frank agrees, still puzzled. He makes a mental note to investigate later.

“Seriously, no more fucking.”

“No more fucking,” Frank echoes.

Mikey climbs off the bus and comes back a few minutes later with his bass and Frank's guitar. He sets his bass carefully against the side of the couch and hands frank his guitar.

"Teach me your ways, oh masterful guitar one," he says, sitting next to Frank.

Frank snorts and stands up. "I can't fucking play sitting down," he says, hooking the strap over his head. The guitar falls to about his belly button."Goddamn noodle ass stick-twig motherfucking scarecrow man!" Frank curses as he adjusts the strap.

"Having some problems there?" Mikey asks.

"You shut the fuck up. Jesus Christ your hands are giant--how do you play anything? This is horrible. Why are your arms so long."

"Basses have longer necks," Mikey says," it works out."

"'Basses have longer necks,'" Frank mimics mockingly. "Fuck you, I want my guitar body back."

"Just show me how to play it, Frank."

"Patience! This kind of genius takes years."

"We're playing, like, tomorrow."

"Shit."

~~~~

The thing is, Mikey had tried. He had tried so hard for Gee. The two of them have been fucking since Mikey was old enough to get accidentally roped into a threesome, but they’d never really been a couple. Both of them had had girlfriends, and both of them had had casual hookups. Sometimes they'd both sleep with the same person at the same time, because it reminded them of the first time but was always better.

One day, before they moved out, while they were still planning where to look at apartments and how far from Mikey’s work they could afford to be, Gerard had knocked on the frame of Mikey’s open door with a serious look on his face. He’d sat down on Mikey's bed and asked, expression so hopeful, if, maybe, after they moved out, they could be together for real. Mikey had felt kind of sick to his stomach; he'd always been shit at relationships. But he wanted to make Gerard happy, so he had agreed.

When they finally did both move out; when they didn’t have to sneak into each other’s rooms in the dead of night, didn't have to date for appearances; when they weren’t pressed for time and privacy anymore; when they could finally sit on the couch and watch a movie with Mikey’s head in Gerard’s lap, laze around in bed on weekends and come three times before breakfast; when they could finally just  _ exist _ together in peace, Mikey tried. He tried for Gerard, because he loved him.

He woke up in the mornings and kissed Gerard, and they both had horribly unhealthy breakfasts in their tiny kitchen. He went to work, and when people flirted with him he didn’t flirt back. He  _ tried;  _ he lasted three months. 

The girl was cute, short with three different colors in her hair, and Mikey was still scared to tell anyone he had a boyfriend in case he met them again. (Mikey has a medical diagnoses that entitles him to be fucking paranoid.) Her name was Mindy, but she liked to go by Mimi. 

They fucked at her place; Mikey texted Gerard, told him some guys from Eyeball were hanging out, told him he might be home late. Gerard said okay, said thanks for letting him know, said he might be asleep when Mikey got home, said he loved him. Mikey didn’t check his phone until he was on the way home, swearing to himself that he wouldn’t do it again. 

He did it again, and he did it again. He did it again and again and again, but the worst part? The worst part was that Gerard caught him the third time. His lip trembled as the guy--Geoff--gathered his clothes, apologized, said he hadn't known, left as fast as he could. Mikey said nothing, just sat in bed and stared down at the comforter and hated himself, hated that he couldn't be what Gerard needed.

“Mikey,” Gerard said. He hadn’t moved from his spot a foot in front of the door. He sounded so small and so hurt. Mikey wished so much that he could fix it. Mikey wished he hadn’t been the cause.

“Gee,” he said back, finally looking up. They don’t really do grandiose shows of affection, no flowers, no meaningless trinkets, but Gerard had had two Starbuck cups and the DVD of Cruel Intentions in his hands. “I’m so sorry.” 

Gerard didn’t say anything. He set the cupholder and the DVD case on the dresser. He took a deep, stabling breath, and Mikey prepared himself for what the next moments would hold. He still wasn’t prepared. 

Gerard--Gerard started stripping? He pulled his shirt over his head and let it drop to the floor, toed out of his shoes. He undid his belt, and Mikey knew he wasn’t wearing anything under his jeans. He knew because he had jerked him off in the hallway before he left for work that morning. The jeans hit the floor with the clink of the metal belt buckle before Mikey finally found his voice again.

“Gee?” he asked warily,” What are you doing?” Mikey cursed his traitorous body for enjoying the sight of naked Gerard at a time like this. Gerard didn't answer him, but started climbing onto the bed. “Gee?” Mikey tried again. 

“Shut up,” Gerard said. It was small and angry and like his voice was so close to breaking. “Just shut up.” He shoved Mikey down so he was flat on the bed. “Move this fucking sheet.”

Mikey was in too much shock to comply. Gerard huffed and started angrily pulling at the sheet that Mikey had covered himself with in a vain attempt to hide from his shitty commitment issues Mikey’s brain came back online when Gerard grabbed at his dick; mostly because he was vaguely afraid that Gee would  _ rip it off _ .

Gerard leaned down and didn’t so much kiss him as mash their mouths together and bite. “I’m gonna fuck you,” Gerard said,” and get this fucking prick cologne smell off of you, and then I’m going to forget this ever fucking happened.”

“Gee, I swear I--”

Gerard cut him off, which was probably good because he didn’t know what he was going to say anyway. “Shut up, mikeyway,” he said,” if you know what’s good for you, you will shut the fuck up.” here were tears in his eyes that were never going to leave them, god damn it.

And Mikey did. He shut up and let Gerard take out all of his, perfectly reasonable, anger in a somewhat unorthodox method, and after, with Gerard’s head against his chest and a pulsing pain in his jaw and ass, he promised himself he would never do it again. He could do this; this was everything he had ever wanted. He wasn’t going to ruin it all over something so stupid. Gerard was giving him a second chance; Mikey could change.

He made it two months this time. He finally figured out that his itch for variety coincided with his manic episodes. He tried not to go out much when those came around. He tried.

This time her name was Kimberly and they fucked in her car outside a work party. The next time her name was Teresa and he ate her out in the bed that was ‘his’ when friends came over. The time after that Mikey didn’t catch his name over the music, but he was small and cute and looked almost too young to be there.

He learned. He learned not to be too careful, to stay out late  _ sometimes _ , but to not actually do anything those nights. He started wearing cologne, strong stuff that couldn’t be overpowered by anything else. Gerard still caught him in bed with someone else every other week. Gerard still took him back and told him he just wanted to forget it happened. Eventually, Mikey stopped trying, and Gerard stopped letting him sleep in the same bed as him. They still had sex, but it was mostly angry sex, and Gerard almost always cried after. It was a bad few months.

Finally it came to a head after literal days of not talking to each other. Gerard was sitting on the couch when Mikey came home from work. He was wearing a robe that the two of them shared and drinking coffee that might have actually been more whiskey than coffee. He hadn’t slept in approximately thirty-two hours, but Mikey didn’t know that because they weren't sleeping in the same bed anymore.

Mikey stopped when he saw Gerard, let the front door close behind him and dropped his keys on the table by the door. “We need to talk,” Gerard said, and Mikey’s heart stopped beating inside of his chest. He was sure of it. Gerard patted the couch next to him, and Mikey stiffly walked over and sat down. “This isn’t working out.”

“This is it then,” Mikey said, looking over at Gerard. Gerard raised an eyebrow. “Literal lifelong relationship, and I managed to fuck it up in less than a year.” He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “Go me.”

“Yeah,” Gerard said,” you fucked it up real bad, Mikes, but so did I.”

“Did you fuck a bunch of strangers, too?” Mikey asked bitterly. And, hell, if Gerard answered that yes, he had, Mikey wouldn't even be mad. At least then they'd be equally shitty. But Mikey knew the answer to that question; Mikey knew Gerard. As much as the both of them are somewhat disillusioned with the world at large, Gerard is still a hopeless romantic. Gerard wants a house and a dog and a stable relationship, and Mikey knows--and knew at the time--that eventually Gerard would find it with someone who wasn't him.

“No,” Gerard answered Mikey. “I didn't do that, but I should've realized you would. I shouldn't have asked for something I knew you couldn't do.” Mikey felt like a real piece of shit.

“Gee, I'm sorry,” he said,” I'm so sorry.”

“I'm sorry, too, Mikes,” Gerard said back. Mikey reached out tentatively for Gerard’s hand, and Gerard let their fingers lace together. They sat in silence for a few moments, Mikey's thumb traced anxious circles on the back of Gerard’s hand.

Eventually, Gerard spoke again. “So, I was thinking,” he said,” that if you--” He sighed, stared at the floor. “If you want to keep this-this  _ thing  _ between us? If you wanna keep it open, that's--I’d be okay with that.” It took effort for Gerard to choke the words out, but he powered through.

Mikey leaned over and hugged his brother. It felt good, felt right. Gerard breathed a few deep, calming breaths in the crook of Mikey’s shoulder. They would be okay. 

They talked and established boundaries after that. Threesomes were still a-okay.  Mikey could sleep with whomever he wanted to as long as he asked Gerard first, and if Gerard said no then Mikey would listen. Mikey always listened. If he couldn't be what Gerard needed, he could at least be good for him. 

Mikey remembers when Gerard’s birthday is, (easier to do with a sibling.) He remembers their anniversary, which they sat down and decided upon a few years ago, “because we need one.” Mikey brings Gerard coffee in the morning even though Mikey is the hungover one. Mikey is the perfect, doting partner, and he always listens when Gerard says no. Always. 

Except for when he didn't. Except for when he wandered off and fucked Gerard’s best friend after Gee told him no. Except for when he acted like the bratty youngest child that he is and threw a tantrum at the word no. So yeah, you could maybe say Frank had touched a fucking nerve.


	3. Narcissism (Falling in Love with Yourself)

In retrospect, Mikey thinks that they probably should've started with him showing Frank the bass basics--the bassics, if you will--first. Because any hope they had that Mikey could learn guitar in less than a day was completely in vain. So now the rest of the band is angrily beating on the bus door, and Frank has had the bass in his hands for all of thirty seconds.

They look at each other, panicked. Mikey puts the guitar into Frank's hands as well and shoves him into the bunk area, closing the door quickly behind him. He then goes and opens the door, peeking his head out.

"Yeah?" he asks. In answer, Bob shoves past him and onto the bus. Ray follows close behind, apologizing, and Gerard comes on last, giving Mikey a weak smile. It breaks his heart a little bit.

"Where's Mikes?" he asks.

Mikey's face momentarily falls, but he gets it back up before Gerard notices, hopefully. Frank and Gerard haven't spoken to each other since they talked on the bus last night, of course Gerard wants to see his 'brother.'

"Uh, just a minute," Mikey says to Gerard. "I'll go check on him. He was freaking out pretty bad earlier."

Gerard's eyebrows knit together. "He usually comes to me when things get bad," he says quietly. Mikey can _fee_ l the hurt in his tone. He flees before he can do something dumb.

"Frankie," he hisses as he enters the bunk area. Frank sighs with relief when he sees it's just Mikey." What did you do with the guitars?" Mikey questions, noting the lack of instruments in Frank's hands.

"They're in your bunk," Frank says. He's drumming an erratic beat into his thigh with one hand. The other is absently picking at the skin of his neck, and Mikey swats his hand away.

"Don't fuck up my skin," he chastises. "Well, any more than it already is,” he adds, noting the blotchy redness already on most of his neck.”But no--Gerard wants to talk to you." He reminds himself of why he came in here. "Please, please, be careful of what you say, okay. Try to get out of it if you can, and listen, Frankie. Are you listening?" Frank nods.

"This is unrelated, but you are manic," Mikey says slowly," my body hasn't slept more than two hours in a good three days, and it's going to crash and crash hard sometime soon. Until then, you're gonna be shaky and hyper with a side helping of fuck anything that moves--"

"I wondered why Bob suddenly looked appealing," Frank cuts in. Mikey narrows his eyes at him.

"This is serious!" Mikey insists. "The pills should help some, but just--Frankie?" Frank nods to show he's paying close attention; Mikey's glad he thought of this. "Don't have sex in my body, with anyone but me,” he finishes,” whether I've fucked them before or you _think_ I might've fucked them before, just, don't."

"I never would've considered it, mikeyway."

"Yeah, right." Mikey rolls his eyes. "Get out there and feelings it up with my brother. I'm gonna stay in here and see if I can figure out this guitar thing. If not we'll need a backup plan."

Frank makes a face. He doesn't have anything to say in response to that, so he just goes back out to where Ray, Bob, and Gerard are.

Ray is having a mostly one-sided conversation with Gerard about how totally awesome this new band he met are. Gerard is nodding at all the appropriate times, but Frank's known Gee long enough to know that he's not really invested in what's being said. Gerard glances around and perks up immediately when he sees Frank.

"Mikes!" He calls, stopping Ray in the middle of whatever he was saying. Gerard glances apologetically at him and makes his way over to Frank. He notices the red, raw patch of skin at the base of his neck and frowns. "Hey, can we talk?" he asks, standing close, looking nervous.

Frank knows he should try to weasel out of this, but he feels so _bad_ for the guy. "Yeah, Gee, we can talk. C'mon." He motions Gerard back into the hallway of the bunks.

"Where's Frankie?" Gerard asks from behind him.

"Uh, I dunno," Frank answers lamely. "Frankie?" His own name feels foreign on his tongue as he calls it out. There's no response. "Napping, maybe?" Frank offers.

"Mm." Frank is startled by Gerard suddenly standing inches behind him. Frank turns to face him. Gerard looks up at him for a moment--and isn't that a novel experience for Frank--before quickly grabbing him around the middle in a tight hug.

"I'm sorry," Gerard says into the shoulder of Frank's (Mikey's) shirt. Frank thinks he can actually hear the broken pieces of Gerard's heart clattering around. "I shouldn't have called you a whore."

Frank is vaguely surprised by that--not the apology but the insult in the first place. Since Gerard got clean he’s been living on this whole mantra of clean living and good mental health and sex/body positivity. Frank told Ray to shut his whore mouth about a week ago, and it spawned an hour long lecture on how “sex work isn’t an insult, Frankie.”

Either Gerard’s got a massive double standard, or The Fight was about some serious shit. Mikey had said it’d been a real screamer.

He remembers something else Mikey said as well; it shoots to the forefront of his mind like it’s been shouted at him. “I’m sorry,” he tells Gerard, like he promised. “I’m so, so sorry for what I said--what I did.” Penitent, yet vague, ten points to Frankie.

Gerard hugs him tighter, and Frank is starting to think that having a sibling might’ve been worth it for an unlimited source of hugs. Then things get weird.

Gerard is nuzzling Frank’s shoulder, which, fair enough. He does that to basically anyone he’s comfortable enough with for casual physical contact. His arms start to loosen. Frank thinks this signifies that the hug is almost over. Frank has never been more wrong about something in his life.

Gerard starts running his hands up and down Frank’s back. This still doesn’t raise any alarms in Frank’s head; Gerard has always been a touchy-feely sort of emotion displayer.

When Frank really starts to question the stability of his sanity is when Gerard starts laying kisses up his neck. They’re soft and whispery, ‘I’m sorry’ without the trouble of words. Frank’s done the same thing to girlfriends he’s pissed off, but Frank is currently in Gee’s baby brother’s body.

“Gee?” Frank asks. Gerard hums in answer. “What, uh--”

“Fuck!”

Gerard jumps away from Frank like he’s been bit, and both of them turn to see Mikey now lying on the floor. Looks like he took a dive from his bunk.

“Frankie!” Gerard says. He doesn’t follow it with anything, just glances nervously at Frank.

“Uh, hi guys,” Mikey groans from the floor.

“I think you fell,” Frank says.

“Not shit,” Mikey answers. “Fuck, I think I hurt something.”

Gerard is frozen, his face in comical surprise. Mikey wants so badly to kiss it off his face, but Frank is still here, and he’s still in Frank’s body. He’ll just have to wait.

“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” Mikey asks.

“No,” Gerard says quickly,”not at all.”

He rests a hand on Frank’s shoulder for a moment; Frank has the urge to grab it and give Gerard a long hug. He feels immeasurable sadness for a few unexplained seconds before apparently his subconscious decides to get back with the program. Gerard has turned and is leaving the room as Frank’s rational emotions come back. He shakes his head a few times before Mikey whines from the floor.

“Well that was weird,” Frank says as he helps Mikey up. A sudden spike of anxiety buries itself, unbidden, in his chest. He does his best to ignore it, wondering what it's based on in the first place.

“I think Gerard just tried to kiss it better,” he says with an awkward laugh, trying to lighten the mood and ease the pressure in his chest.

“See this is exactly why I said not to be alone with him,” Mikey says. He wipes his palms on his jeans; why does sweating when nervous have to be a thing his and Frank’s body's have in common?

“Why'd you bring him back here?” he asks, crossing his arms and waiting for an answer. He’s made Frank’s body look like a pissed off soccer mom.

“I dunno, it didn't seem right to have that conversation where everyone could hear.”

“Frankie, that's not your call,” Mikey tells him with a sigh. “Don't do it again, okay? You really don't know how we work.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that a little bit now,” Frank says.

\----

It rapidly becomes apparent that there's no way Mikey’s going to be able to perform as Frank. Frank already knows how to play bass, so really all he has to do is memorize the songs. Mikey has two extra strings to deal with, and he doesn't know how notes work on this thing.

“How do we convince them that you can't play?” Mikey asks, leaning his head back against the wall and absently petting Pansy. “You _always_ play. If I go tell them that I can't play because my wrist twinges a little they're gonna think you're fucked in the head.”

They’ve sneaked off. It's late, he's not sure what room this is, but it didn't have a lock. He can hear people walking around and shouting things, voices muffled, but no one’s tried to come into this room yet. They've found the sort of public privacy that is all you get on a tour like this.

“We’re both fucked in the head, if you haven’t noticed,” Frank says.

Mikey has nothing to say to that. He stares up at the ceiling and listens to the quiet sound of Frank practicing “I’m Not Okay.”  The familiar rhythm is comforting, but every time Frank misses a note Mikey feels an uncomfortable swell of irritation toward himself. As if Mikey is messing up the song himself.

“What if you're sick?” Mikey asks after a few more run-throughs. “That's reasonable, right? Can't perform if you've got a gross cold.”

“Mikeyway, you're devious,” Frank says, pausing his playing.

“Comes with being the youngest,” Mikey says.

\----

Mikey manages to convince the whole band that he can’t play because he’s coming down with something. He makes it convincing by literally sleeping for sixteen hours straight after saying he doesn't feel well. Frank’s body is amazing in the way he can just switch it on and off.

The first time Frank goes onstage with Mikey’s bass (and a substitute rhythm guitarist from Ray’s recommendation), he refuses to take the pills that Mikey hands him twenty minutes beforehand, thinks it’ll mess him up. He’s not expecting the sudden and unstoppable feelings of anxiety and paralysis that come over his body. He suddenly understands why Mikey doesn’t play to the crowd the way Frank does. He misses half the notes and plays the other half too late. He’ll take the pills next time, he decides.

Gerard catches him by the shoulder after he's escaped the stage. Frank flinches so hard he thinks he pulled a muscle. “Mikes,” he says, this thumbs runs back and forth on Frank’s shoulder. “Mikes are you okay?”

Frank panics; he’s a deer in the headlights, and Gerard is an oblivious ambulance. Gerard is looking at him with this open concern on his face, and Frank doesn't know how to fall apart the way Mikey would. He doesn't know how this works. He doesn't know what he should tell Gerard, and his lungs aren’t working. The only thing running through Frank’s head is “danger, danger, danger.”

“I--I don’t--I can't. I--” He wants Mikey. He needs Mikey to tell him what to do with this body and this brain that don’t fucking work. But Mikey is back on the bus, practicing guitar. He needs Mikey. His head is pounding; his chest hurts. He grabs his head in his hands and sinks down the wall, cradled on the floor.

“Shit, Mikes,” Gerard breathes. He crouches down and rests a hand on Frank’s shoulder. Frank curls more in on himself. “C'mon, pretty,talk to me.” Frank doesn't register what Gerard’s just called him.

Frank can't speak. He's incapable of speech. Every time he opens his mouth he just ends up gulping in more air. He’s dying. He’s dying! He’s had Mikey’s body for less than forty eight hours, and he's already killed it. He's a failure. He doesn't know how to deal with this. _He needs Mikey._

“Where’s Fr--Mikey, where’s Mikey?” Gerard looks up at the sound of Frank’s frantic voice from another hall. “I need to find--”

“Frankie?” Gerard stands and calls to him. Frank quickly rounds the corner at the call of his name. He looks rough. His hair is rumpled beyond repair, face flushed. He’s panting and sweaty and has this half-crazed look in his eye. His shoes are untied, and only one of the three buttons on his pants is done.

“Frankie!” Frank says triumphantly and scrambles toward the crumpled form of Mikey. “I mean Mikey!” he corrects himself. “What’s happening?” he asks Mikey.

Frank looks up at his own face, and his chest loosens a little. Mikey is here; Mikey knows what to do; Mikey will fix this. He opens his mouth to speak, but all that comes out it ragged breathing.

“Shh, shh, it's okay.” Mikey kneels down and places a hand on Frank’s shoulder. Frank flinches at the initial contact but relaxes a moment later. “You don't have to talk; it's okay.” Mikey cards a hand through Frank’s hair. Frank leans into the touch, and his breathing starts to even out.

Gerard stands by and watches. He thinks he can actually feel his heart breaking, like someone stabbed him through the ribs. Mikey used to come to _him_ when he got bad. Mikey used to ask for _him_ when he had panic attacks. Mikey hasn’t climbed into his bunk and desperately kissed him like he always does after a fight. Mikey--Mikey is _his_ , God damn it! And so is Frank! It’s not fair that they’re choosing each other over him.

Gerard backs away from the scene unfolding in front of him. He can't look away even though it's killing him ever so slowly to see Mikey clutching on to Frank’s arms while Frank tells him to _breathe_ , breathe, it's okay. Gerard turns around and runs away as soon as the hallway bends.

\----

“Frankie,” Mikey says his name to get his attention. “Frankie, I need you to stand up, okay?” Frank’s eyes go wide and he starts shaking his head. “Frankie, Frankie,” Mikey says again. “Just for a little while, okay? We’re gonna go somewhere quiet. We’re gonna go to the bus, okay?”

“I like the bus,” Frank answers. Mikey smiles and sighs in relief. This is good. Talking is good.

“Yes, you do. The bus is good. We’re gonna go there now, okay?”

“Okay,” Frank says, though he sounds a bit unsure. Unintelligible voices echo through the backstage area, and Frank flinches.

“It’ll be quick, I promise,” Mikey says. “C’mon, you’ll feel better.” He stands up and offers his hand down to Frank. Frank takes it and hoists himself up.

They make it back to the bus with little interference. Frank is curled into Mikey's side as they walk, and it looks ridiculous given that Mikey-Frank is considerably shorter than Frank-Mikey. The familiar, acrid air of the music festival calms him. Everything is still too loud, too bright, but he doesn’t have to open his eyes. He keeps a hand over one ear and keeps the other pressed against Mikey’s shoulder, muffling the world.  Mikey’s got him. Frank realizes, distantly, that he’s seen Gerard do this same thing with Mikey dozens of times.

\----

When they get back to the bus, Frank is still holding onto Mikey’s arm, but he’s much less tense than he was before. He feels like all of his limbs have been replaced with lead, and he just wants to _sleep._ Mikey leads Frank into the bunk area, but Gerard is in Mikey’s bunk. He’s curled up around the teddy bear Frank noticed his first night in there. “Gee?” Mikey asks after he opens the curtains. “What’re you doing in my--key’s bunk?”

Gerard looks startled to see them. “Hey, Mikes,” he says, and Mikey freezes for a moment. He notices that Gerard is looking at Frank, though, and relaxes. Frank smiles at him and yawns against Mikey’s shoulder.

“Hey, Gee,” he says after. “Can you get out of there?” Gerard’s face falls, and Mikey feels his heart break for the millionth time today. Frank has a sudden urge to apologize to Gerard.

“Yeah, yeah Mikes,” Gerard says, quiet. Mikey's heart breaks at the familiar words. Gerard climbs his way out of the bunk and hands the stuffed bear to Frank. “Here.”

Frank is somewhat confused, but he takes the bear and flashes Gerard the best smile he can manage. Gerard smiles back. “Let me just.” Gerard climbs into his own bunk, across and down from Mikey’s.

Mikey is watching the casual way Frank holds the stuffed bear. He's watching it and he doesn't like it. Frank is the first person besides Mikey and Gerard to touch that bear in years, and it makes Mikey uncomfortable, even though it’s technically Mikey’s body doing the touching.

For about ten seconds he keeps glancing at Frank’s hands and then anywhere else. Finally, he grabs for the bear; Frank is startled and holds it tighter.

“Frankie,” Mikey hisses, wary of Gerard in his bunk. “Give me Barnabas.”

“Who?” Frank's asks. Mikey raises his eyebrows and motions down at that bear with his head. “Oh!” Frank lets Mikey take the bear, the bear named Barnabas.

Mikey hugs it close to his chest. Frank wants to make some sort of joke, but something about Mikey’s face tells him not to. He feels a sudden, deep-seated calmness settle in his chest. It’s unexpected, but he welcomes it.

“Go to bed, Frankie,” Mikey says, safely depositing Barney in his--Frank’s--bunk.  “It's been a long day.”

Frank can't argue with that. He climbs into his--Mikey’s--bunk, shucks his jeans, and gets comfortable. With any luck he’ll actually sleep tonight. Frank’s never been all that lucky, though, and Mikey’s bunk is just foreign enough that he’s uncomfortable there. He wants his bunk back.

At two AM, when sleep still eludes him, he quietly climbs out of his bunk. On bare feet, he pads to his own bunk and slowly pulls back the curtain. Mikey is curled up around the bear, facing the aisle. He’s very obviously asleep, so Frank pokes him a few times to wake him up.

“Frankie?” Mikey asks groggily. “What?”

“I can’t sleep,” Frank whispers back. “Can I--” It sounds stupid now that he’s gone to say it out loud, but he’s come this far. “Can I sleep in here? I can’t sleep in your bunk.”

Mikey squints for a moment like he’s trying to figure out what Frank just said. “Uh, sure?” He sets Barney behind his head on the pillow and scoots back until there’s enough space for Frank to settle into.

Frank lies with his back to Mikey’s front Mikey has one arm under the pillow and the other slung above his head. Frank adopts a similar posture, though his free arm is resting on the pillow by his head. It’s the best position for Sharing a bunk; Mikey knows from experience.

“Hey, Mikes?” Frank asks after they get settled. Mikey hums in response, but Frank can hear the question mark at the end of it. “How’d you know to come help me earlier?” he asks; it’s been nagging at him.

Mikey is silent for a few seconds. “I don’t actually know,” he finally admits. “I was just--I got really panicked all of a sudden? And I kept thinking Frank needs me, Frank needs me. It was super weird.”

Mikey yawns, and Frank is suddenly immeasurably tired, too tired to question it further. “Goodnight, Frankie,” Mikey says. He absentmindedly presses a kiss to the back of Frank’s neck, and Frank is Calm. He falls asleep in minutes. He wakes up to Mikey’s arm tightly around his waist, Mikey’s face nuzzled against his neck, and he’s happy Mikey’s body made him wake up first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not much to say abt this one. hope you enjoyed it. comments make me want to write more so leave those if you have any. peace.


	4. Of Course

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THAT THIS TOOK 7000 YEARS
> 
> I'VE NEVER WRITTEN STRAIGHT PORN BEFORE AND IT SCARED ME

Frank doesn’t handle Mikey’s life and brain very well. Gerard is sulking every time Frank refuses to talk alone with him. Frank keeps forgetting his pills and thinking that sleeping will be restful. Pete keeps trying to get Frank to sleep with him. Frank actually  _ is  _ sleeping with Mikey, but Mikey mopes about it like he's the biggest piece of shit afterwards. Which sucks, because it's  _ really good sex. _ Frank has seen himself from so many new angles lately, and he’s afraid he’s slowly falling in love with his own body.

Mikey’s body’s manic state levels out a few days later. Frank actually falls asleep in the middle of a conversation, and Mikey knows that if he’s feeling exhaustion then he’s coming down. He comes down hard. It’s work to get him awake enough to play the shows, and once he is awake he’s a shaking mess. However, he is a coherent and (for the most part) not hallucinating shaking mess, and that has to count for something. The shakes will subside.

Mikey manages pretty alright as Frank. After a week of intensive sleep/covert guitar lessons he feels like he’s reasonably prepared to pretend to be Frank onstage. If he focuses really hard and looks down at his hands he can play perfectly. If he doesn’t do that he can play passably. If Gerard comes over and tries to makeout with him onstage he can do nothing but revel. 

The first time it happens, Mikey is caught completely off guard. He’s staring down at the guitar. He knows he should be trying to give the fans a show, but he doesn’t know  _ how. _ Gerard, apparently fed up with ‘Frank’s’ lack of enthusiasm (fed up with Frank’s lack of attention focused on him) comes over to him; Mikey doesn't notice until he sees shoes on the floor below him. 

He chances a quick glance up, and there's Gerard, beautiful and sweaty and looking like he just got fucked. (Mikey  _ knows _ what Gerard looks like when he’s just gotten fucked. Mikey misses it.)

He’s still playing passably, so Mikey indulges in staring. When the instrumental kicks in, Gerard fists a hand in Mikey’s collar and pulls him in for a kiss. Mikey is shellshocked, ecstatic,  _ wanting _ . He grabs Gerard’s shoulders (gives up on playing at all) and kisses him with all he has. He can hear the crowd cheering (hears a falter in the bassline when Frank looks to see what’s happening.)

Gerard bites Mikey’s lip before he leaves to sing the rest of the song, and Mikey scrambles to find where they’re at. It takes him a few measures but gets back in sync with everyone else, his sudden silence having not caused too major a hiccup.

Later, Frank climbs into his own bunk with Mikey (in the dead of night, when everyone else is asleep. It reminds Mikey so much of something else, someone else.) It’s become a nightly tradition for them now; it makes Frank sleep better. He sleeps with his back to Mikey’s front, and if he’s woken up Mikey for dry humping at oddball hours of the night, well, that’s his business.

“Was it weird to kiss Gerard?” he whispers over his shoulder. He wants to speak entirely in whispers around Mikey, sometimes. This thing they have seems so precarious.

Mikey stiffens. “I don’t know,” he responds automatically. ‘I don’t know,’ is an appropriate response to any question, will buy you silence and time to think up a lie. “He didn’t know it was me,” he adds. “I don’t think it was weird.”

“Okay,” Frank whispers back. It’s so soft he’s not sure if Mikey even heard it. He’s not sure what it even means, but it’s okay.

\----

Frank is always the first one off the stage, like Mikey always was. Gerard is always last. He comes off beautiful and sweaty from the disgusting summer heat, and he asks,” Where’s Mikes?”

'I'm right here,' Mikey wants to scream.  He wants to hug him and say he loves him and misses him so much. He wants to kiss him and ask, ‘Do you recognize me now?’ He wants his brother back. Instead he shrugs and watches Gee’s face fall, then runs off to where he knows Frank is to run damage control.

Gerard looks sad most of the time he’s not performing. Mikey supposes that it's his own fault for avoiding his brother and telling Frank to do the same, but Mikey--Mikey doesn't know how to deal with his problems with anything but avoidance and despair. Still, he can feel his heart breaking a little bit every time he sees his brother.

\----

Mikey is about ten seconds from a breakdown. His head is fucking quiet for once, and he's not having nightmares. He's sleeping normally and regularly. His lungs seize up sometimes, but his  _ head  _ is  _ quiet.  _ And Mikey absolutely  _ hates _ it. He wants Gerard back. He misses curling up next his big brother until he stopped shaking. He wants his fuckimg body back, and he’s going through brother withdrawal symptoms.

He’s been lying in his bed (Frank’s bed) for a solid four hours in the middle of the day, curled up around Barnabas. The bear is his version of a security blanket. Gerard had gotten him out of a claw machine when Mikey was ten and crying about how he couldn’t win. Gerard spent thirty minutes and Mikey didn’t want to know how many quarters trying to get it. Mikey had given him the biggest hug of his young life when Gerard presented it to him and had immediately named him Barnabas, captain of the high seas. 

He smells like Gerard and Mikey, smells like  _ familiar  _ and  _ home. _ His eyepatch has been sown back on three times, his hat much more; Mikey’s lost count. He pets the worn fabric of Barney’s ear. It feels different with Frank’s hands. 

He knows he told Frank he shouldn’t worry about it, but Mikey is afraid they won’t go back. They have to go back. He  _ needs  _ his brother. Frank is too busy dealing with how much Mikey’s body is broken to help with fixing  _ Mikey _ , and even though his head is quiet there’s an aching pit in his chest where Gerard should go. 

He curls tighter around Barney and actually starts to cry. Frank’s body cries differently than Mikey’s, more full body shudders and choked wails than quiet sobbing and shaking all over. The thought makes him cry harder; he wants his  _ life  _ back.

Mikey doesn’t realize that he’s crying loud enough to be heard in the front of the bus until Gerard comes back to check on him. He knocks lightly on the wood of Frank’s bunk and says softly,” Frankie? Hey, Frankie, you okay?”

The sound of a foreign name coming from Gerard’s mouth when it should be  _ Mikey’s _ just makes him more upset. He curls as tight as he can around his bear and tries to be quiet; Gerard is just not having it. He pulls open the curtain on Frank’s bunk, and Mikey flinches at the light. 

“Frankie?” Gerard says, soft, quiet. It’s a tone of voice that Mikey’s familiar with. It’s the one Gerard always uses to calm him down after panic attacks. Mikey sniffs audibly; with snot and tears running down his face it’s hard not to. “What’s wrong?”

Mikey is a weak man. He’s still holding Barnabas in one arm, but he rolls over to face Gerard and wraps his free arm around his neck, pulling him into an awkward hug and getting snot on his shirt. Gerard brings both arms up to wrap around Mikey’s--Frank’s--back. 

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Gerard says, petting up and down Mikey’s back. Mikey sobs into Gerard’s shoulder, because no. It’s really not alright, but Gerard can’t know why. 

\----

Gerard stays there, awkwardly holding Frank half out of his bunk while the younger cries on him. “Shh, shh,” he says periodically, petting through Frank’s uncharacteristically greasy hair. Frankie must be really upset to have been avoiding showers, and Gerard wonders how he’s been missing it. 

He thumbs along the back of Frank’s neck, pets his head and says it’s okay. He’s pulling out every Big Brother comforting technique he knows, but it doesn’t seem to be working. If anything, Frank is crying harder. Gerard is not one to leave a hysteric person alone, but he really wishes the others were back on the bus so he could hand Frank off. He’s obviously not helping his friend any. 

“Frankie,” he says, during a small lull. Frank sniffs and sobs once against Gerard’s shoulder. Gerard swallows thickly, really not wanting to say what he’s going to. “Do you want me to go get Mikey?” 

Gerard finds out immediately that that was absolutely not the right thing to say. There’s a sharp intake of breath before Frank’s other arm shoots out and wraps around Gerard, pulling him impossibly closer. Frank’s entire upper body is hanging out of the bunk now, supported by Gerard, and he’s whispering,” No, no, no, no,” over and over again. 

“Okay, okay, I won’t do that,” Gerard says, quickly backtracking. “But can you come out here?” He’s afraid he’s going to drop Frank on his head or something. Frank sniffs and nods against Gerard's shoulder.

Gerard thinks that Frank is going to let him go, climb out of the bunk and maybe talk to him. Gerard is wrong. Frank clings tightly to Gerard’s shoulders and just swings his bottom half off the bunk into the floor. He lands stably, if not gracefully.

“Okay, that's good, Frankie, that's good,” Gerard murmurs. Now that Frank is standing, Gerard is at the perfect height to rest his chin on Frank’s head and wrap his arms around Frank’s skinny torso in a hug. Frank is at least not sobbing anymore, and that's something.

Gerard holds the hug for what he thinks is an appropriate amount of time (and then maybe a little longer. He’s an affection whore, and Frankie is warm and so familiar, comforting.) He presses one kiss to the top of Frank’s head, because he thinks he can get away with that, then pulls away, hands resting on  Frank’s shoulders. Frank seems to be sort of okay now. He’s not openly sobbing everywhere, so, that's something. 

“Okay good, this is good,” Gerard says, starting to run his hands down Frank’s arms. He's got something in his hand, and Gerard looks down to see what it is while still speaking. “Let’s just go--” He doesn't get to finish his sentence, voice dying in his throat. Frank is holding Barnabas-- _ Mikey’s  _ Barnabas, that Gerard got for him when he was ten, that Mikey has guarded with his life since then, that no one else has ever been allowed to hold so casually--tightly against himself with one hand. 

Frank sniffs and wipes at his nose absently with his free hand. He looks like shit. His eyes are red and puffy, hair a greasy tangled mess (not that Gerard can say anything about that.) There are tear tracks cutting their way down his face, and he’s looking up at Gerard like he can fix every problem in the world.

“Where did you,” Gerard starts then stops. “How did you--when did--” He can’t find words or noises or  _ abstract concepts  _ to explain the way he feels in this very moment of time. Betrayed comes to mind, but it’s not strong enough. Forgotten is a closer match. Hurt, scared, forgotten, replaced, unneeded--none of them are  _ strong enough.  _

Frank is still looking up at him. “Gee,” he says, quiet. His free hand cups the curve of Gerard’s jaw, and Gerard immediately darts his eyes toward Frank’s face. “I’m so sorry.” 

Gerard doesn’t get a chance for the, “What for?” to leave his lips. Frank gets up on his toes, eye level with Gerard, and kisses him, soft and sweet and nothing like all the other times they’ve kissed. No one is watching; no one is cheering. There are no flashing lights or guitars or drums that Gerard can feel in his bones. There’s just he and Frank and an empty bus and Frank’s thumb petting his cheek in a way that’s so familiar he hurts.

As much as Gerard wants this to continue (wants answers), he needs Mikey here. A little voice in the back of his head says, no, he doesn’t (he wants it so badly that it  _ aches _ in his chest). Mikey has done this sort of thing countless times, and Gerard’s been left to clean up his messes. Gerard’s not a hypocrite, though, and this isn’t something he will fall into on his own.

He puts his hands on Frank’s arms and gently pushes him away. Frank’s eyes are closed, and he leaves them that way. “I can’t, Frankie,” he sighs.

Frank looks back up at him with a watery smile. “ I know,” he replies. Gerard doesn’t know what Frank means, doesn’t know what Mikey’s told him. “Hey, Gee?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have a hug?”

Gerard’s hands are still on Frank’s arms. He should move them. Should tell himself no. Should go find Mikey and  _ force him _ to talk it out. Instead, he nods his head, and pulls Frank into his chest. He does his best to ignore the bear that he can still feel Frank clinging to, does his best not to cry.

”Yeah, Frankie, of course,” he says quietly.

~~~~

They were fourteen and ten. “Hey, Gee,” Mikey said,” can I borrow this?” He held up a book. (Gerard doesn’t remember which one, isn’t even sure he looked at the time.)

“Of course,” Gerard said without hesitation.

\----

They were seventeen and thirteen. It was Mikey’s first day of high school. He knocked on the doorframe of the bathroom, and Gerard looked over, black eye pencil held casually in three fingers, still pointed toward his eye. “Hey, Gee,” Mikey said by way of greeting.

“What’s up, Mikes?” Gerard offered back.

Mikey shuffled his feet and looked down at them. “Could you teach me how to use that?” He nodded his head toward Gerard’s hand.

A smiled twitched across Gerard’s face. “Of course,” he answered.

\----

They were nineteen and fifteen, locked in an odd routine that neither dared speak about. Gerard would go to college, would go out, would come home. Mikey would go to school, would go out, would come home. Gerard was fucking strangers in bathrooms and cars and their own houses; Mikey was fumbling his way through semi-public groping. Gerard would come home, and Mikey would come home, and they would swap stories. They shared too many details and asked too many breathless questions. They were teetering on the brink of something, and neither of them knew what it was. 

“How did you know you liked boys,” was the first thing Gerard heard upon descending the steps to his room. Mikey was lying on Gerard’s bed, arms slug above his head and feet dangling off the end.

Gerard dropped his bag to the side of the stairs and shrugged off his jacket. “Are you asking for a friend?” he joked. He came over to sit on the edge of the bed and started taking off his boots.

“Asshole,” Mikey said back. Gerard snorted and laid himself down next to Mikey. His back was propped up on the pillows, his feet actually on the bed as opposed to Mikey who apparently thought pillows were for your arms.

“There was this guy a few years older than me,” Gerard began. Mikey looked up at him as soon as he began to speak. “He was beautiful.” Mikey pulled himself up so that he and Gerard were in the same position. “I was fourteen and pretty sure I loved him,” he said, rolling his eyes at himself. 

“I know the feeling,” Mikey said softly.

Gerard paused for a second, looked at Mikey, licked his lips. “Obviously I was wrong,” he continued, forcing himself to move on,” but I only figured that out  _ after _ I sucked his dick.” 

It was Mikey’s turn to lick his inexplicably dry lips, to swallow loudly. There was silence for a few moments, then,”Hey, Gee?” Gerard hummed in response. “Tell me about it?” Mikey asked.

The bed was not big enough for there to be as much space between them as there should’ve been. Mikey’s arm was warm against Gerard’s side. His heart was beating louder and harder than it should. “Of course,” Gerard said, so quiet it was almost a whisper.

\----

They were twenty and sixteen, at the last party of the summer before school started up again. Gerard didn’t want to be there, but Mikey had made him come, said he needed to leave the house at least once this week.

Mikey had dressed him. Told him to wear the jeans that made his ass look nice (Gerard didn’t know which pair that was or where it was in his vast piles of shit. Mikey did, though.) and threw a shirt at him. Gerard half-heartedly combed the rats out of his hair, but didn’t bother with makeup. It just wasn’t one of those days. 

Mikey, being the social butterfly that he was, had immediately ditched Gerard and told him to,” Go make friends. You’re a cool dude.” Gerard was resolutely  _ not _ a cool dude, and he sat himself on the couch by the snacks and pouted. This was a high school party, and he was not a high schooler. Everyone here probably thought he was creepy. 

An hour in, while Gerard was contemplating taking the car and going home (Because fuck Mikey, he could walk home.), someone sat next to him. Gerard looked over, ready to tell whatever high school couple that had decided to makeout next to him to fuck off.

He was pleasantly surprised to find that it was just a lone girl who had sat next to him. She was pretty, darkskinned and brunette. She was wearing a white croptop that probably had said something at one point, but was faded beyond comprehension now. She looked close to his age, and he wondered if she was in the same boat he was.

“Oh, hi,” Gerard said, once he took her in. She was hot, and Gerard was not accustomed to being approached by hot people. (Dark clubs where he was dressed in his most ripped jeans and had done all but written ‘fuck me hard’ across his forehead didn't count.)

“Hey,” she said back. She had a drink in her hand. “I’m Raen .”

“Gerard.”

“Hi, Gerard.” She took a sip of her drink. She was probably already a little bit drunk. Her face was flushed, cheeks dark, and her speech wasn’t the clearest. “You seem a little old to be here,” she said.

“I’m only here because my brother dragged me out,” he answered.

“I’m here ‘cause ‘s my house.” Gerard raised an eyebrow. “Sister made me buy the beer, ‘cause my fake ID better than hers.” she said by way of explanation, shrugging.

They talked idly for a few minutes. Raen was nice. She wore candy pink lipstick, and Gerard liked anyone who wore candy pink lipstick. She laughed when he made bad jokes and had definite opinions on her favorite X-men. Over the course of their conversation, she moved steadily closer to Gerard, and he was starting to think maybe this party wasn’t a complete waste of time. Raen put her hand on his thigh, and his theory was pretty much confirmed.

She kissed him, and he kissed her back. He hoped she didn't touch his unwashed hair, and she didn't. He pet his hand up her thigh, fingers brushing the frayed denim at the edge of her shorts, and she sighed into his mouth.

She showed him to her bedroom. (They were both Adults and their foreplay wasn't going to go down in a room full of high schoolers.) She turned the lowest light on and pushed him down on the bed. He wondered if maybe he was just the only acceptable option at this party full of teenagers. He was alright with being that if the reward was Raen kissing him and pawing at his fly.

They didn't even bother to close the door, and it's a wonder that Mikey was the first one to walk in on them, really. Gerard saw him first, their eyes locking. “Hey, Gee,” Mikey mouthed at him, smirking.

Raen was on the floor, getting lipstick on Gerard’s cock to match the smears on his lips. He was getting a  _ really good _ blow job, and his baby brother was  _ watching _ .  Mikey had caught him quite literally with his pants around his ankles.

Mikey licked his lips; Gerard tilted his head back and moaned. They caught each other’s eyes again. “Hey, Raen ,” Gerard said, touching her shoulder to get her attention. His voice wasn't quite steady, but he’s only human.

Raen stopped what she was doing. “Too much for you?” she teased, standing up slowly. Gerard could see down her shirt. She had nice tits, they seemed like they'd be a good handful.

He swallowed, reached out and stroked a hand up her side. “No, not that.” He brushed his hand along her back, skin against skin; it was nice. He put his other hand on her hip, guided her into his lap. His cock was still out, standing up out of his open jeans, and he was careful to keep from dissolving into mindless grinding.

“I was wondering,” he started, but cut himself off. He gnawed at his bottom lip. It’s a nervous habit both he and Mikey have. (It’s a response to arousal both he and Mikey have.) 

“What?” Raen asked. She was tipsy at best, and Gerard briefly wondered if he should do this. “C’moooon,” she interrupted his thoughts, hands clumsily pawing at his chest,” tell meee.”

Gerard put two hands on her hips to stabilize her. “I was wondering if my friend could stay.” He nodded his head at Mikey. 

Raen turned her head quickly to look at him, and Mikey froze. She stared at him longer. He lifted one hand in an awkward wave. She smiled at him. “Aw, he's  _ cute _ ,” she said. “He’s tall. What’s his name?”

“Mikey,” Gerard answered. There was a predatory grin on his face as he said it.

“Can I stay?” Mikey asked. Raen nodded her approval.

“Of course,” Gerard said. Mikey smiled softly and stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him. It felt final, the soft click of the door latch resonating somewhere in Gerard’s chest. This was it; they couldn't shrug this off, what they were about to do. 

Mikey came and sat next to the two on the bed. “You sure about this?” Gerard asked.

Mikey looked down at his hands. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, then looked at Gerard. “Yeah,” he said,” I’m sure.”

\----

Mikey looked beautiful. Gerard allowed himself to look, allowed himself to  _ indulge _ . Mikey wasn’t moving away from him. Mikey wanted to be here. Raen was laid out on the bed; Mikey was between her legs, kissing her. He was shirtless, and so was she. Gerard was sidled up behind Mikey, pants still open but cock put away for now. He had more important business. 

“Kiss her neck,” Gerard told Mikey, quiet, breathless. Mikey listened, moving his lips down and pressing feather light kisses along her skin. Gerard rested a hand on the small of Mikey’s back and leaned closer. Raen had one leg wrapped around Mikey’s waist, and Gerard tried not to think about  _ who _ he was jealous of in that situation. 

He put a hand on her thigh. He moved his hand around to rest on Mikey’s flat, soft stomach. He leaned his forehead against Mikey’s back. He asked for forgiveness from whoever was listening. He unbuttoned Mikey’s pants and kissed the skin of his back.

Mikey whined and moved back from Raen when Gerard’s fingers pet the hair near his cock. Gerard moved to rest his chin on Mikey’s shoulder, taking in the view, pale against dark skin, Mikey’s skinny frame juxtapositioned with Raen’s curves. “We’re going to hell,” Gerard whispered against Mikey’s ear, pressing a kiss to it afterward. Then, louder, he said,” Play with her tits, Mikes. Don’t be an ass.” 

Raen dug her nails into Mikey’s back when he complied, large hand curving around one breast, playing with her nipple. She liked it, arching up off the mattress into his hands, and Mikey leaned down to use his mouth on the other. “Yeah, Mikes,” Gerard said,” like that.” He moved both his hands to the sides of Mikey’s now open pants, getting his hands inside and just feeling Mikey’s skin, the way his hipbones moved as he subconsciously rocked against Raen.

Mikey was breathing hard already, making little gasping noises every time either of them touched him. Gerard figured it was excusable given that this was Mikey’s first time. (Gerard knew Mikey was a virgin. Gerard knew he was basically deflowering his baby brother. Gerard hated himself. Gerard was going to be jerking off to this for the rest of his  _ life.) _

Gerard doesn't know why it happened, how it shifted, when they all agreed to it, but, somehow, Gerard was in charge. Mikey rolled his hips down against Raen’s and she gasped. “Can he fuck me?” she asked Gerard. Gerard said yes.

Mikey got her shorts off and pet his fingers along her thighs. He turned to look at Gerard over his shoulder. “Can I eat her out?” he asked.

“Of course.” Gerard pet Mikey’s bare skin, hand traveling up his back to his neck and into his hair. “Of course Mikey.” Gerard tightened his hand in his brother’s hair. He suddenly  _ needed _ to see Mikey with his face buried in her cunt,  _ needed _ to know what he sounded like. He didn’t realize that he was guiding Mikey’s head down until Raen made an appreciative noise and reached down for it.

Gerard was right, Mikey made the best noises when he was eating a girl out. Gerard knew he liked it, knew it was as far as he’d ever gone with a girl(, knew the only reason Mikey was still a virgin was because he could get off on giving head.) He grabbed Mikey’s skinny hips; they fit so well in his hands. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Mikey’s back, following the trail of his spine all the way to his neck.

“Don’t come,” Gerard said in a hushed tone, close to Mikey’s ear. He licked his lips and swallowed the lump in his throat. “I wanna watch you fuck her, Mikes.” He rolled his hips against Mikey’s ass, not even trying to stop it anymore. Mikey moaned, low and appreciative.

“Get her off first. Be good for her.” Gerard paused, let out a choked whine when Mikey rolled his hips against Gerard’s. “Fuck, yeah,” Gerard gasped. “Yeah, be good for me.” 

“Oh, shit, shit, fuuuck,” Raen cursed when Mikey moaned and tried to nod his head vigorously without pulling away. She arched up toward his mouth, and he looped his arms around her thighs, pulling her closer. She was quiet when she came; a stifled whine was the only noise that came out of her open mouth. Mikey didn’t stop until the hands in his hair started to tug him  _ away _ from instead of toward her.

Mikey pulled his head back from her cunt, dragged in a gasping breath. “Fuck,” he breathed, voice ragged. Raen used her grip in Mikey’s hair to tug him up toward her mouth. Her kissed her, making these little happy sighs the whole time. 

Raen finally let go of Mikey’s head enough for the two of them to catch their breath. “Can I fuck you?” Mikey asked her, blunt as always. 

She huffed out a laugh. “Yeah,” she said,” in a minute. Just, give me a minute.”

\----

Mikey fingered her, and Gerard watched. (Funny how, looking back, so much of their life can be divided like that. Gerard will never get tired of watching Mikey.) He watched Mikey’s long fingers work gently over her, and he watched the way her whole body shifted when he did something she really liked. Gerard watched the way Raen’s chest rose and fell, and he definitely did not imagine himself in her position.

“You have condoms?” Gerard asked after Raen said she was ready. She nodded her head and reached for her side table. Mikey slowly pulled his fingers out of her, and her breath hitched. Gerard sidled up behind Mikey, clothed chest to bare back, and slid a hand down his chest to the hair near his cock that he was acquainting himself with earlier. He tugged at the waist of Mikey’s jeans, and Mikey obligingly helped him get them off. 

Gerard couldn’t stop touching, hadn’t taken his hands off Mikey since this thing started. It seemed like the only logical thing to do when he ran his fingers up the inside of Mikey’s right arm and grabbed his wrist gently. He brought Mikey’s hand up to his mouth and tentatively licked his  wet fingers. Mikey’s chest was heaving, and when Gerard closed his eyes and sucked two of Mikey’s fingers into his mouth Mikey gave up and just slumped his head back on Gerard’s shoulder, making quiet moaning noises and trying to rub his cock against nothing. 

Mikey made a noise like he was dying, and when Gerard opened his eyes he saw that Raen had moved and was slowly stroking his cock. Gerard pulled Mikey’s fingers from his mouth. “This is the best shitty party I’ve ever been to,” he told her. She smiled and kissed him over Mikey’s shoulder. It wasn't a soft kiss, not the kind of kiss you'd share with lovers (with family), but it was a kiss nonetheless, and Gerard was always up for mouth-on-anything actions.

The three of them were a tangle of limbs and bare skin. Mikey was sandwiched between the two others while both of them groped him and each other.  Gerard could feel him making desperate, shallow thrusts of his hips. “Please,” Mikey gasped. “Please, I wanna--”

“Okay, Mikes,” Gerard said. Raen backed off from the two of them. She had one hand on Mikey’s chest and held a condom out to Gerard.

“You wanna do the honors?” she asked. Gerard would never tell a soul, but he was honestly worried that he was going to come in his pants right then and there because of that question. He swallowed thickly and nodded. She ripped open the package and handed it to him. They shifted.

Gerard is a good big brother. He taught Mikey his colors and shapes. He explained to him why he couldn't go out alone in their neighborhood. He made them both dinner when their mom worked late. He helped with Mikey’s homework; he listened to Mikey’s girl problems; he made sure Mikey knew what good music was. Gerard is a good big brother, and he kept telling himself that while he rolled a condom onto his baby brother’s cock.

Gerard pressed a kiss to Mikey’s jutting hipbone and moved away slowly. Mikey reached out quickly put a hand on his shoulder; Gerard looked up at him. “Will you take your shirt off?” Mikey asked. Gerard complied, and both Mikey and Raen reached out to touch the newly exposed skin.

“You’re so warm,” she said. It was because he was turned on beyond belief. He ran hot when he was, well, hot. She scratched her nails lightly down his back, and had he been in possession of feline characteristics he would have  _ purred. _

Mikey’s hand on Gerard's chest moved down, and Gerard instinctively sucked in his soft, pudgy tummy. Mikey glanced quickly at Gerard’s face when it happened. (Later, Mikey would lay Gerard out and tell him all the reasons his older brother was beautiful.)

Hands on his skin was Gerard’s weakness. He was far from touch starved in his daily life; at this point, he figured he just qualified as a glutton. Mikey cupped Gerard’s chin, making Gerard open his eyes. He'd closed them in satisfaction. 

Mikey’s face was closer now, much closer, close enough that if Gerard moved just a little bit he could press their lips together. He had never wanted and feared the same thing so much in his life. Two different yet similar pairs of lips parted fractionally, both wanted what they thought they couldn't have (what they were scared of getting.)

Gerard turned away, stood from the bed. This was neither the time nor the place for that. It felt larger and more final than what they were already doing. “Gee,” Mikey started to say. 

“C’mon, Mikes,” Gerard cut him off, ruffling his brother’s hair,” don't make her regret letting you stay.”

Mikey snorted, looked down. “Yeah,” he said. He looked back at Raen. She was leaning back against the pillows, petting herself slowly and just watching. She smiled slightly at Mikey when he looked toward her. “Yeah, okay.”

Gerard took avantage of the fact that he was standing and shimmied out of his pants, leaving him standing in just his boxers. Mikey moved in between Raen’s thighs. His long, pale fingers rested against her smooth thighs. She moved her fingers away from her cunt, and Mikey lightly ran his thumb over it, making her sigh happily.

“I, uh,” Mikey started and stopped. She made a questioning noise and looked down at him when he spoke. “I guess now’s a good time to tell you I've never done this before?” he said sheepishly. 

“Shit, really?” 

“Yeah.”

She sat up straighter, closed her legs as best she could. “Well now I feel weird,” Raen said. “Like, I should've tried to make this special or something.”

“No, no,” Mikey said. “It's fine this is,” he glanced at Gerard quickly. “This is fine.” Raen’s eyes darted quickly back and forth between Mikey and Gerard. As she looked between them them she started to put two and two together.

“I see,” she said. “You’re sure?” Mikey nodded, and she relaxed back into the pillows.

Gerard felt kind of awkward just standing there in his underwear. He leaned forward, resting one hand on the small of Mikey’s back. “Want me to help you?” he asked, speaking close to Mikey’s ear, hushed.

“Yeah,” Mikey said back, equally as hushed. Gerard pressed a kiss to Mikey’s hair and ran his free hand down Mikey’s chest. He wrapped his hand in a loose fist around Mikey’s cock (He was holding his baby brother’s  _ cock.) _ and coaxed him to move forward. 

“Finger her a little,” Gerard told Mikey. ”Make sure she's ready.” Raen obligingly spread her legs and let Mikey’s fingers back in her. Mikey groaned quietly. “Nice,” Gerard said. “She ready? ‘S she wet and open and ready for your cock?”

“Yeah,” Mikey rasped. Raen didn't say anything, vocalizing her appreciation in other ways. Mikey thumbed at her clit and she whined, trying to get her legs further apart. 

“Don't leave the lady waiting,” Gerard.said. His hand was still on Mikey’s cock, he moved it to coax Raen into lifting her hips up. Mikey took his cock in his own hand. He looked to Gerard for reassurance, and when Gerard nodded, he pushed inside. All three of them moaned. 

“Slow,” Gerard said after, a hand curled around Mikey’s hip. Mikey paused for a second, composing himself, then slowly worked inside her the rest of the way. “Stay still.” Mikey whined like that would hurt him, and Gerard suddenly wanted it to. He wanted to see how far he could push Mikey, if he would make.more gorgeous sounds.  Gerard climbed back behind him on the bed. “Be good for me, Mikes; let her do the moving for now.”

Raen took that as her cue to tighten her legs around Mikey’s hips and start rocking back and forth on his cock. Mikey whined high in his throat and rapidly started panting. 

“Don’t come,” Gerard told Mikey. “Don't you dare come.” ( _ ‘before I can make you’.) _ Mikey whined again; Herard squeezed his hip. Gerard used his free hand to tug his boxers down to his thighs then shuffled closer to Mikey, bringing his bare cock snug against the skin of Mikey’s back. 

“Get her off again. It's the least you can do,” Gerard punctuated his words by rubbing his cock slowly against Mikey. Mikey's arms were useless; it was all he could do to hold onto Raen’s hips and not let them hang limp at his sides. It quickly became apparent to Gerard that if he wanted Raen to enjoy this, he was going to have to do it himself. 

He reach around Mikey with his right hand and pet up Raen’s thigh. He found her clit and started rubbing light, small circles on it with his thumb. (If he moved further down, if he used his forefinger instead, he could feel where she was stretched around Mikey’s cock.) She liked that, and started rocking her hips down on Mikey’s cock and up into Gerard's fingers. 

Raen was overstimulated, and it didn’t take long for Gerard and Mikey’s combined efforts to get her off again. “Please,” Mikey whined as she clenched around him. There was sweat beading on his forehead. He looked like he might cry. (Gerard kind of wanted him to.)

“Please what? What do you want, mikeyway?”

“I want to move. Can I move? Please.”

Gerard smiled at the back of Mikey’s head. He hooked his chin on Mikey’s shoulder and looked down at where his brother’s hips met Raen’s. “Of course, Mikey.”

Mikey keened and hunched forward, arms bracketing Raen’s shoulders. He started moving his hips, small, fast thrusts that had him whining on every one. “Fuck,” Raen breathed. She hooked her ankles around Mikey’s back and rocked with him. “C’mon.”

He didn't last long, not long at all. Gerard barely had time to wrap his hand around his own cock before Money was groaning and fisting his hands in the bedsheets. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he changed, breath coming in labored gasps. 

Gerard was the last of the three to get an orgasm. He jerked his cock fast and slick and  _ just  _ the way he liked it. He didn't even have to let his mind wander; everything he ever needed to get off was right in front of him. He dug his nails into Mikey’s hip and came across his back. 

“Shit,” Gerard breathed, long and satisfied. Raen echoed the sentiment, unhitching her legs from around Mikey’s waist.

Mikey finally caught his breath and his motor functions, and he pulled out of Raen and leaned back on his knees. “Uh.” He looked down at the condom. He had at least had the presence of mind to hold it on his cock, but--”What do I do with this?” he asked the room.

“Oh my god,” Gerard said, holding back a laugh. “Here, turn towards me.” Mikey did, and Gerard got the condom off of him and tied it off. 

“You got a trash can?” he asked Raen. She nodded, eyes half closed, and gestured toward it. Gerard pulled his boxers back up and walked over to throw it out.

The two males got dressed in silence. Raen elected to just crawl under the comforter. “Lock the door when you leave,” she said around a yawn. Gerard did, and just like that the brothers were back in the party--which was now in a much fuller swing than when they left it--with no one any the wiser to what they'd been up to.

A kid wearing a blanket as a cape ran by, and the two looked at each other before they both cracked up laughing. “It's not even that funny,” Mikey said, after a good twenty seconds of laughter.

“It's not,” Gerard agreed, wiping a tear from his eye. He smiled up at Mikey. Mikey smiled back. Gerard made a split second decision. “Hey, so, about what just--”

“Can we just go home for now?” Mikey asked, cutting him off.

Gerard shut his mouth around the words he was going to say. Instead, he felt to make sure his car keys were still in his hoodie pocket. “Of course,” he said when he found them.

\----

They were twenty and just barely seventeen. It was Mikey’s birthday. Two weeks had passed since The Incident. Mikey told his friends he wasn't a virgin anymore; not all of them believed him. Their delicate routine had been tipped on its head, and a new one had replaced it. 

Gerard went to college, came home, jerked off; Mikey went to school, came home, jerked off. If they were doing it in the same room, on the same bed, at the same time, that was their business and no one else’s. (If Mikey gasped, ‘I love you,’ sometimes, that was his business, and no one else’s.)

They didn’t do much for Mikey’s birthday. It was on a school day, and their mom had to work late. Gerard ordered a pizza, and they watched A New Hope. It could've been any other day, but with pizza.

Gerard was in the kitchen, throwing away their paper plates and napkins. Mikey had stayed downstairs, so Gerard was surprised when he turned around and he was there, staring intently.

Gerard started, a hand shooting up to his chest in surprise. “Jesus, Mikey,” he said, laughing lightly,” make some noise next time.” 

Mikey said nothing. He licked his bottom lip and chewed on it for a moment. Gerard watched as pink skin became red. He opened his mouth, about to say something, when Mikey finally moved.

He moved toward Gerard, pressing him back against the kitchen counter. Mikey had been taller than him for months, but it really hit him now. Mikey stooped down so he was at eye level with Gerard. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered. Gerard only had a moment to comprehend what those words meant before Mikey’s lips were against his own.

Gerard froze for a moment, taking in the situation. He made up his mind fairly quickly and grabbed two handfuls of the back of Mikey’s shirt, pulling him in closer. Mikey’s tongue pet at Gerard’s lips, and Gerard moaned quietly, opened his mouth. Mikey bit hard at Gerard’s bottom lip and pulled away. 

They looked at each other, brown eyes meeting brown eyes for what felt like forever. They'd crossed the line (they'd crossed the line two weeks ago), taken a running start and sprinted past the line. There wasn’t even a line anymore; they'd just trampled it in their careless stampede. They were breathing hard. Gerard could feel Mikey’s dick against his leg. They kissed again.

Later, in the dark, quiet of Gerard’s room, he and Mikey lay tangled together. The line was a distant memory, an old friend, lost somewhere along with Gerard’s pants and Mikey’s blow job virginity. Mikey turned his head away from Gerard’s skin so he could speak.

“Hey, Gee?” he said. Gerard pet along Mikey’s shoulder, made a noise to show he was listening, but left his eyes closed. Mikey took a deep breath. “Do you love me?”

Gerard’s eyes flew open in surprise.  How could Mikey even question that? Hadn’t Gerard been saying it for years? Hadn't Gerard told him so many different times, at so many different (so many  _ inappropriate)  _ moments? He turned his head, and Mikey looked up at him. Gerard said the only thing that made sense. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLS TELL ME IF THE PORN IS BAD I HAD 0 IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING


	5. Steel Wool and Waiting Around

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is kind of short and contains no porn so sorry on those fronts :/ but adding more to it made it seem disjointed

When they play their show that day, Gerard doesn't go near Mikey. He doesn't go near Frank, either, and he compensates for the lack of a show by having sex with the entire crowd at once. Mikey’s never been so glad to have an instrument in front of his dick.

They don't talk to each other much over the next day. Gerard shoots Frank little glances while they're in public, and Mikey knows that it's Gerard trying to have a conversation that no one else can understand.

Mikey knows that he and Frank should talk. Hell, he and Gerard should talk. He and Frank  _ and  _ Gerard should  _ really  _ talk. But neither of them are coming to him, and Mikey has a couple decades of not being proactive under his belt. He’ll wait this one out. (Maybe he’ll learn from his mistakes someday.)

\----

Mikey makes his way back onto the bus after what he considers to be a successful walk. No one tried to talk to him, and he doesn't feel so much like he's going to rip what's left of Frank's hair out from being confined to the bus.

He grabs a poptart, because he hasn't eaten yet, and flops down on the couch. He hears someone coming out of the bunk area, but doesn't pay it much mind.He starts to pay it a bit more mind when Frank is suddenly climbing into his lap. It takes him a minute; he’s still not used to his extra length. Mikey swallows and set his impromptu breakfast aside. Frank is pressing kisses against his tattooed neck.

“Hi,” he says, surprised but not unwelcoming. He smiles up at Frank when he pulls away. 

“Hi,” Frank says back. He kisses Mikey, cradles his jaw in his hands and  _ kisses  _ him. Mikey moans into it. He’s missed this, craved this kind of attention since he ended up in this body. Frank’s a good lay, but Mikey misses sex with someone he’s totally in love with. He tries not to think about how, given time, Frank would probably fall into that category.    
  
"Where's everyone else?" Mikey asks, running one hand through Frank's hair--his hair. It's the cleanest he's ever felt it, and he wonders when Frank's been sneaking off to take showers.   
  
"Out."    
  
Frank bites Mikey's jaw and gently runs his hands up under his shirt. Mikey stifles a whine. He needs to--needs to make sure they won't get caught. "When will they be back?" he asks, breathy. He lifts his arms when Frank goes to take his shirt off.   
  
One of Frank's hands starts tracing around the waist of Mikey's pants. “Don’t know.” He bites Mikey’s bottom lip and pulls. Mikey whines and looks up at him. Frank gulps. It’s now or never.

“Hey, Mikes,” he says, settling himself more comfortably in Mikey’s lap. He’s really not the right shape for it, right now, but it’ll have to do. 

Mikey seems to catch on to Frank’s tone of voice. He sits up straighter, settles his hands on Frank’s hips--his own hips. “What’s up?” he asks.

Frank takes a deep breath. “I was wondering,” he says, making eye contact. Frank’s always been one to face things head on. “I was wondering if you might, possibly, be interested in, maybe,uh--” Head on does not mean ‘with a speech prepared.’ Mikey waits patiently for Frank to find his words.

“I was wondering if maybe you’d like to, uh, date?” Frank closes his eyes after he says it, like that will protect him from rejection. When Mikey doesn’t say anything after a few seconds, he slowly opens one eye to gauge his reaction. 

Mikey’s mouth is slightly open in shock. He makes an aborted noise in his throat before swallowing loudly. “Frankie, I--I can’t,” he settles on.

“Why _ not?”  _ Frank asks, sounding hurt. “You can do it for girls, and you can do it for Pete, but you can’t do it for me?”

“It’s not that. I--I want to,” he says, and it’s true. He wants Frank in more ways than he can have him, but he needs Gerard more. “I’ve realized lately how much I really do, but I  _ can’t.” _

“Why?” Frank asks again. 

“Because I would ruin it!” Mikey shouts. “I’d ruin it, and I’d ruin the band. I’d break your heart and Gerard’s. I’m no good at it.”

“Oh Mikey,” Frank says. He kisses Mikey again, softer this time. “You’ve broken my heart plenty of times, and I’m still here.”

Mikey snorts.”That was fucking corny, dude,” he says. Frank laughs.

“Yeah it was. It’s true though.”

“I really want to, Frankie,” Mikey admits.  It's not a no. He really wishes he were strong enough for it to be a no. “But we need to talk about a few things first.”

“We’ll talk about it?” Frank asks.

“Mhm.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Frankie.”

Frank runs a thumb over Mikey’s--Frank’s--bottom lip. “Can it wait?” he asks. Mikey sucks the thumb into his mouth, and Frank takes that as a yes.

They actually make it to the bunks this time. They fuck in Mikey’s because,” Barnabas has never seen me having sex, and I don’t want him to start now.”

“What is with that bear?” Frank asks between kissing Mikey’s--his own--exposed shoulder.

“Gee got him for me when we were kids,” Mikey answers. Frank doesn’t ask any more questions after that, just tells Mikey to get his pretty ass into bed; Frank fully realizes the connotation of that statement given their current circumstances. Mikey chooses not to address it.

\----

Frank is happy, boneless and satisfied. Mikey put his boxers back on, but Frank has opted to stay naked. The other man is a warm line up his right side, nestled under his chin and breathing evenly. Frank loves everything about this situation; he almost doesn’t want to disturb it, almost.

“Mikes,” he says. Mikey makes a happy humming noise in response. “You said we needed to talk,” Frank reminds him. Mikey groans against Frank’s skin.

“Do we have to? Why can’t we just keep pretending everything’s fine?”

“You promised,” Frank reminds him. Mikey groans again. 

“Frankie,” he says, but doesn't say anything after it. He wonders when the others will be back, briefly hopes the answer is ‘soon’ so that they can save him from this situation.

“Mikey,” Frank says back in the same tone. Mikey sighs and moves away from Frank’s side. There's really not enough room in the bunk for them to lie shoulder to shoulder. Mikey lies on his side, propped up on his elbow, and speaks.

“I can't date you,” he says. Frank takes a sharp breath. “I mean, I can't date  _ just _ you.” It’s one of the rules, one of the rules that Mikey has already talked Gerard in to bending for him and Pete. This is different, though. Gerard’s been falling in and out of love with Frank from afar for  _ years.  _ It’d kill him that Mikey got there first without telling him. “I’m already--”

Frank sits up, sits cross-legged and hunched over. “Is this about Pete?” he asks, and Mikey huffs. It’s never about Pete. Why can no one ever see that? Pete is a good friend, and he deserves someone who will help him. Mikey wishes people would stop falling in love with him.

“No,” Mikey answers. He adopts the same posture as Frank. They sit across from each other in the bunk, each man looking down at the sheets. Frank is regretting not putting boxers back on; he feels overly exposed.“It's not about Pete; it was never about  _ Pete _ .” 

“Then what  _ is  _ it about?”

“It's about Gerard!” Mikey snaps at him (, and so much for it not being his secret to tell.) It's always about Gerard. The two of them are so wrapped up in each other; how could anything  _ not _ be about Gerard?

Frank blinks stupidly over at him. The bunk is dim, and Mikey is glad for that. It means Frank can't see him nervously scratching at his skin with a thumbnail, can't fully see his face as he tries to come up with a lie.

“He needs me,” Mikey says. It's not a lie, not quite, but it's not the whole truth. This is the most honest he’s ever been in this situation. “He needs me, and I need him. We’ve never--never worked well totally separate, and if you want me you--you have to have him, too.”

Frank is silent for a moment, thinking. “Like, date both of you? At once?” 

Mikey nods, and Frank wants to cry. He can picture it in his mind’s eye, himself, his body, sprawled on a couch. His head is in Mikey’s lap, and Mikey absently brushes his fingers over Frank’s skin while he watches the TV. Gerard, cross legged on the floor and hunched over a sketchbook, Frank has one arm hanging off the couch, toying with a bit of Gee’s hair. Gerard catches Frank’s hand and kisses it, then smiles at Frank. Frank can feel in his heart how much he  _ wants _ this.

He’s been so gone for these two for so long. He’ll take anything either of them are willing to give him, but both of them? Mikey is offering him something he hadn’t even dreamed of.  “I think I could do that,” he says finally. There's a noise in the front of the bus, then people’s voices. 

“I should go,” Mikey says. Frank holds up his hand like he's going to say something, and as much as Mikey is an expert at running from his problems, he finds he doesn't really want to leave this conversation. “Later, okay?” he says, almost pleading.

“Okay, Mikey.”

\----

A blue plastic cup is dangled in front of Mikey’s eyes. Mikey looks up and sees his own face looking down at him. “I bring a peace offering,” Frank says. 

Mikey takes the cup, takes a drink. It tastes awful, but he’s pretty sure it has alcohol. He’ll live. Whatever is in the cup is warm. Everything is fucking  _ warm _ .

It's been a few hours since Bob and Ray almost caught them with their pants around their ankles. “Is this appropriately ‘later?’” Frank asks.

Mikey thinks it is; he pats the ground next to him. Frank drops down beside him. It's mid afternoon, and the sun is sweltering. Pete probably has his shirt off, and Mikey hates that he’s thinking that. They're taking what refuge they can in the shade of the bus. Warped is once again in full swing in the distance, but they don't play until five. 

“You wanna do this here?” Mikey asks, looking around at all the other people milling about.

“Nobody’s listening to us,” Frank answers. Mikey shrugs, and Frank takes it as the go-ahead. “So about--about the whole,” Frank is struggling to put the concept into words. It’s been all he could think about for the last several hours. One would think he’d be better prepared for this situation.

“About the whole you and Gerard thing,” he finally settles on,” how, exactly, would that work?”

Mikey takes a deep breath just to blow it out again. “I don't know,” he admits. He takes another drink just for something to do. “We haven't talked about it that much.”

“But you  _ have _ talked about it?” Frank presses. He wonders if they talked about him. He knows they pick up girls together sometimes; he wonders if they ever talked about doing it with him. He wonders if they saw how much he wants them, if he's even less subtle than he thought he was.

“There was this girl, Nina.” Mikey pauses for a moment, remembering, a small smile comes to his face. “Nina was the best thing that ever happened to us,” he says sincerely. 

“What happened?” Frank asks.

Nina was a friend from work. Mikey had loved her; Gerard had thought she was okay. She thought Gerard’s artist gig was the coolest thing ever. She made sure Mikey ate ‘real food’ a couple times a week, and by extension she made sure Gerard did too. She had come to Mikey, said she’d been nursing a crush for months, and Mikey felt like God himself had smiled upon his existence. But, as it turned out, Nina didn't like to share.

“It didn't work out,” Mikey answers. He picks at his nails and doesn't say anything else.

“So why do you think it would work with me?”

“I honestly don't know if it will,” Mikey answers. “But Gee’s been gone for you since you two met, and living in a bus hasn't made him hate you. That's gotta count for something.”

Frank can’t help but smile. Gerard--as juvenile as it sounds--likes him back. “And what about you?” he asks Mikey. “What do you think of me?”

Mikey drums his foreignly tattooed fingers against his foreign thigh. He doesn't know what to say, really. He doesn't know what he thinks of Frank; he hasn't thought about him that much. Sure, he’s thought about his body. Mikey’s thought about how his back is oddly sensitive and how his fingers look so good wrapped around a cock. But he’s mostly been focused on keeping Frank alive and functioning.

“I don’t know.” He’s been saying that a lot lately. “You’re my friend. You’re good in bed.” Mikey shrugs. “That’s really all I’ve got.” 

Frank narrows his eyes at Mikey. “And you’d be willing to date me, based on that?” He asks.

“Gerard likes you.” Both Gerard and Mikey are shitty at actual relationships. Pete counts for maybe half a relationship, and Gerard wears his heart on his sleeve so that others can steal it and crush it at will. Mikey’s been helping him put back together long enough to know that Gerard will fall in love with anyone who lets him, or doesn’t try too hard to stop him. Really, though, they’re each other’s only real experience in the area. “That’s good enough for me.”

Frank has a sudden realization. “You’d follow him anywhere,” he says,” to fame and fortune and addictions.” 

Mikey huffs. “Yeah, well, it’s not a perfect system,” he says.

He thinks of all the times Gerard had climbed into Mikey’s bed or lap or bunk, half-naked and high off his ass, whispering against Mikey’s ear. “Mikes,” he always started with that,” Mikes, you have to try this.” He’d roll his hips against Mikey’s thigh or stomach or cock, and Mikey would always say the same thing.

“What is it, Gee?” Sometimes Gerard would answer; sometimes he wouldn’t. Mikey always took it, and Gerard always sat on his cock so nice that he didn’t worry about it. Mikey never quite remembered the sex, he remembered it starting and he remembered it ending--usually with fireworks of neon colors going on in front of him or with the feeling of floating out of his own skin, but he could never quite remember it happening. 

Here’s the thing, though. Gerard got clean; Mikey didn’t. Mikey will follow Gerard anywhere, but sometimes he doesn’t leave with him. He thinks, though, that he could apply that same principle to Frank. Gerard wants him, and Mikey can get Frank for him. All he has to do is the thing he’s best at.

“Well this was an enlightening conversation,” Frank says after a moment,” and yet I still have no idea where we stand.”

“It’s not my decision to make,” Mikey answers. He’d take Frank in a heartbeat. (He basically already has.) Mikey’s standards are buried in the ground with his sobriety. (He hopes if he waters them enough they’ll grow back.) “When we switch back, I’ll talk to Gerard about it.”

“Oh great, more fucking waiting,” Frank says,” My favorite.”

~~~~

Once, in the early van days, they'd been on a six hour drive from Nowhere, Pennsylvania, to The Middle of Nowhere, Ohio. And when you do that you have to entertain yourself.

“So what’s the weirdest sex you’ve ever had?” Frank had asked, popping up over the backseat to address the van at large.

Otter snorted and shook his head, refusing to answer. “What the fuck, Frankie?” Ray asked, turning around in his seat to look at Frank. 

“Listen, if we’re gonna be in a band, it’s only fair we know each other’s secrets, right?” 

“Next you’re gonna suggest that we all have a giant friendship orgy,” Mikey said.

Ray gestured between Mikey and Gee. “How would that work with you and Gerard?” he asked.

Gerard snorted, and Mikey shrugged. “Nothing we haven’t done before,” Gerard offered. The van jerked first right and then left as Otter took in that information. 

“Wait what?” Ray asked, letting go of the side of the driver’s seat. He’d grabbed it to stabilize himself.

“Hold the fucking phone,” Frank said, flopping over the back of Mikey's seat and getting in his space. They had him sequestered in the very back seat. This, of course, had been before they'd learned that nothing would stop Frank Iero Jr. from disregarding all personal space laws. “So you two  _ have  _ been in a giant friendship orgy before? Together?”

“Well when you say it like  _ that,”  _ Mikey grumbled.

“It’s not an orgy if there’s only three people, Frankie,” Gerard added.

“Okay back the fuck up,” Frank said. “This is a story that needs to start from the fucking beginning.”

Mikey and Gerard proceeded to have one of their patented sibling conversations. They looked first at Frank, then at each other. Mikey raised an eyebrow; Gerard shrugged. Mikey shifted his eyes between himself and Gerard a few times, then looked pointedly at Frank; Gerard shrugged again. Frank was positively buzzing with anticipation.

"So I was fifteen," Mikey started.

"You were sixteen," Gerard corrected immediately. "You were fifteen when Sayra with a 'y' let you put your hands up her shirt; you're confusing them again."

"What do you want from me?" Mikey asked, indignant.

"Accuracy," was Gerard's reply.

"Fuck off."

"Guys! I wanna hear this story!" Frank whined.

"Anyway," Mikey obliged," so I'm  _ sixteen _ . It's a Friday."

“Mikey had dragged me to this party that I didn’t want to go to,” Gerard said.

“You’re still bitchy about that? How?”

“I had plans!”

“And a threesome isn’t better than whatever you had planned?”

Ray was sending disbelieving glances at Frank, and Frank was simply gaping wide eyed at the two brothers. Otter seemed to be dead to the world, driving on autopilot.

Gerard opened his mouth as if to retort, then closed it a moment later. “Whatever,” he said. 

“Right so it’s a Friday we’re at this party--and it was a shitty party, Gerard’s at least right there,” Mikey conceded. Gerard made an aborted ‘told you so’ motion.

“So I’m camped out on this couch in the middle of the party,” Gerard took over. ”It’s by the snacks that no one’s touching because they don’t have alcohol, and I’m probably the oldest person there, right?”

“Except for Raen ,’” Mikey cut in.

Gerard nodded like Mikey had just made an extremely good point. “Right, right. So Mikey has fucked off to god knows where--”

“I was talking,” Mikey corrected,” to my  _ friends.  _ Socializing, even.”

“You abandoned me,” Gerard said. Mikey rolled his eyes. 

“I maintain that every action I made that night led to the end result. Really you should be thanking me,” he replied. Gerard stuck his tongue out at him.

“Ow, fuck!” he cried. The van had gone over a pothole, and Gerard had bit down on his tongue. Mikey laughed at his pain, like any younger sibling would. Ray, of course, was the concerned one.

“Are you okay,” he asked. He leaned forward like he wanted to check himself, but the seatbelt restrained him. “If you fuck up your mouth we can’t play.” 

“I think I’m fine,” Gerard said, slurred around the finger he had poking at his tongue. “Is it bleeding?” He stuck it out again for an opinion.

“Oh my god, you’re an idiot,” Mikey said,” let me see.” He leaned over the merch box in the middle of the bench seat and grabbed Gerard’s tongue in his fingers. “Hold still you big baby, let me see.” He twisted it around and poked at the angry looking spot, redder than the rest of it. 

“Is this where you bit it?” he asked. Gerard nodded slightly. “You’re fine, calm down. I don’t think you even broke the skin.” He let go of Gerard’s tongue and leaned back into his own seat. Gerard wrinkled his nose at him.

“So what happened next?” Frank demanded in the awkward silence that followed. He had started down this rabbit hole; he wanted resolution.

When it became apparent that Gerard was going to sulk and not answer, Mikey took over. “I’m not really sure what Gerard did, but next thing  _ I  _ know, I’m upstairs looking for a bathroom, and I walk in on Gerard getting a motherfucking  _ blowjob _ .”

“Yeah, and you  _ watched,”  _ Gerard cut in. 

“I did not! I politely apologized once I processed what was happening, and then tried to leave.”

“But?” Frank demanded.

“But Gerard apparently has a knack for getting in over his head with chicks, and she asked me to stay. I don’t think she knew we were brothers.”

“And if she did, she was weirder than I thought,” Gerard added. Mikey nodded along.

“So you just  _ agreed?”  _ Ray asked.

“ _ You _ have never been faced with a kinky drunk chick,” Gerard said.

“They’re very persuasive,” Mikey agreed.

“So Frank,” Ray asked,” are you happy with yourself now?”

Frank was still processing. “So you--how did that even  _ work?”  _ he asked. “With the whole.” He made a vague hand gesture.

Mikey shrugged. “Not great,” he admitted. “We’ve streamlined the process over the years.”

"You--what?” Frank’s head was going to explode. “So is that, like, just something you two do now?" Frank asked.

Gerard shrugged. "Sometimes," Mikey had answered. 

Sure enough, a few weeks later, still on tour but technically a different one, Frank saw it go down. Gerard went in first, and at first Frank was just watching because he had never  _ seen  _ Gerard flirt. Of course not, because he's  _ Gerard.  _

Frank’s seen Mikey pick up girls from across the room via eyebrows, which really works in Mikey’s favor because the longer you talk to him the the less fuckable he becomes. But  _ Gerard-- _ through years of knowing him, Frank had become partly convinced that the dude was some kind of celibate, artist hermit.

The place they were in was loud. They had a show there the next day, and had decided to scope the place out beforehand. The band was alright even if the sound quality wasn’t anything to write home about. The girl Gerard went after was three chairs away from Frank, but he couldn’t hear a thing. 

Gerard’s technique seemed to be the ‘awkwardly endear yourself’ approach. The girl was wearing a Smashing Pumpkins shirt, and Frank had no doubt that Gerard had latched onto that as a conversation piece. He was probably asking if she’d seen them live, telling her about his own experience.

Frank made it through two beers while Gerard flirted with the girl. Near the end of the third one, she seemed much more receptive to him, laughing at whatever he was saying and talking back animatedly. That was when Mikey came in.

Mikey sidled up behind Gerard, draping his taller frame over his brother’s and making bedroom eyes at the girl. Gerard turned his head and saw that it was his brother, then made introductions. Mikey smiled at the girl, pausing at her shirt and probably making the same comments Gerard had made about it. They shared a brain sometimes; it was creepy.

The bartender brought Frank another beer, and when he looked back to the three, Mikey was running his hand along the girl’s upper arm and saying something. He twirled a piece of Gerard’s long hair in his other hand. Frank watched Mikey say something, ask the girl a question. She looked unsure, and Gerard spoke.

The two brothers spent one more beer talking to the girl. Frank gulped down the last of his fourth beer of the night and turned back to his chosen entertainment, only to find that they seemed to be leaving. The brothers each had one hand on either side of her waist, and Gerard was saying something into her ear. Frank was impressed.

So, the moral of this story is that Frank has been aware that the Ways are a bit odd. He’s known that they like to go just a little bit over blurring familial lines. What he hadn’t known is that they took some steel wool to those fucking lines and buffed them out of existence. 

~~~~

Frank is going about his life. Minding his own business while in someone else’s body and sewing closed a hole that's getting big enough to be a danger to the structural integrity of his jeans. He’s been whistling “Sugar...” almost exclusively for three days, much to the distaste of Gerard.

He’s pulling the thread tight on a stitch when it hits him, a slideshow, a video feed, a  _ porno _ . Gerard getting fucked on his back, Gerard on his hands and knees, Gerard sucking cock, a thumb hooked in Gerard’s ass and holding him open while he drips cum, a hand with painted black fingernails wrapped around Gerard’s throat while he begs. Frank knows, can feel it deep in foreign bones, that this is Mikey’s fault.

He drops the needle and thread on the floor as he stands, the pants he was working on sliding off his lap. He walks to the bunk door and opens it, on autopilot mostly. When he drags open the curtain of his own bunk he’s expecting what he finds there.

Frank’s body is laid out, naked, in his bunk. Mikey has his right hand wrapped around his cock; he’s fucking his fist like he just discovered jerking off. Three fingers of his other hand are shoved in Mikey’s mouth, fucking his tongue to keep him quiet and get him off.

Part of Frank wants to lean down and suck his own cock, but another, louder part wants answers. “Mikey what the fuck?” he says. Mikey, who either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t cared about Frank opening the curtain, startled, hands freezing. The Gerard porno running through his head abruptly stops, and is replaced with a comfortable, warm feeling.  

“Hi Frankie,” Mikey says, his voice is breathy. “Mad I started without you?” he asked, smiling. “Can suck you off if you want.” The hand that was in his mouth starts kneading at the front of Frank’s boxers. (The jeans that he was wearing are on the floor by the couch with a needle attached to them.) 

Frank momentarily loses his train of thought and moves his hips into Mikey’s hand. He thinks he could just let this happen, talk to Mikey after. But in the back of his mind the images are starting up again. This time they’re of what Frank knows to be himself in Mikey’s body. 

“I think I can read your mind!” Frank blurts out. Mikey stop massaging his dick and looks up at Frank. Frank’s face is pinched, lip caught between his teeth as he looks down at Mikey. He can see on Mikey’s face when his mind cycles around to figure out what that means.

“Fuck,” Mikey says, hand receding back into the bunk. He curls in on himself a bit. “So you know--”

“There was Gerard porn in my head,” Frank cuts him off. He really doesn’t need to say anything else. 

_ “Fuck,”  _ Mikey says, with more feeling this time. He grabs Frank’s wrist in a death grip and stick his head out so they can make eye contact.  “Frank, you have to understand,” he says up at him. “Please. I need you of all people to understand us.”

“Mikey, I--”

“We’ve tried to stop. We have Frank, and we were both miserable. Frank,” Mikey grabs on to Frank’s other wrist and shakes them. 

“Mikey,” Frank tries again. Mikey’s begging Frank for something that Frank would willingly give him if Mikey would just  _ stop talking.  _

Mikey does not stop talking. “You seemed okay when I was talking about you being with both of us; you didn’t seem upset. What’s changed? Please Frank, you have to--” 

Mikey thought he’d left panic attacks in his old body, but he can feel this very steadily turning into one. Lord knows how Frank’s body will handle his lungs seizing up. Oh god, what if Mikey kills him. What if Mikey dies in Frank’s body, and then Frank will be stuck as Mikey forever. Or maybe Mikey will get sucked back into his own body and he will have literally killed Frank. Maybe they’ll both live in Mikey’s body and everyone will think that Mikey’s gone crazy from grief.

“Mikey!” Frank finally shouts, grabbing Mikey by the shoulders. He’s crouched down so he can look at Mikey at eye level. “Mikey, listen to me,” he says, Mikey stares, wide-eyed, back. “I’m not mad at you,” he says levelly. “You and Gerard are what? Fucking? Dating?” When Mikey doesn’t answer Frank continues. “I don’t care, Mikes. I really don’t.” 

Mikey takes a few deep breaths and a few moments to process this. “You’re okay with it?” Mikey asks. “With us?” Frank nods, and Mikey wraps his arms around his neck and kisses him. Frank is actually perfect; Mikey knows this now. He pulls away but leaves his arms around Frank’s neck. “Gee’s gonna be so happy, Frankie,” he says.

“Are  _ you  _ happy?” Frank asks.

Mikey actually pauses for a second and thinks, really thinks, about that question. Mikey is happy when he makes Gerard happy. For most of his life that’s where all of Mikey’s positive emotions have come from. 

Mikey’s never wanted anything but to make his brother happy. Mikey never really  _ wanted  _ to be famous, and he’s never wanted a family of his own (good lord no one trust him with a  _ child _ ). Gerard has always wanted things. Gerard wants to change the world, and Gerard wants to save lives, and Gerard wants to live happily ever after, and Gerard wants to be clean, and Gerard wants Frank to love him, and Gerard  _ wants _ . And when he  _ gets _ he makes this face at Mikey like the sun is shining specifically so that they can be there, experiencing that very moment, and that’s all Mikey’s ever wanted in life.

So Mikey thinks about what Frank’s just asked him. He really thinks about it. Frank has been his best friend for years. Frank is funny and smart and dedicated. Frank is a kickass guitarist, and he doesn’t make Mikey feel like shit for how broken he his. Frank--Frank makes Mikey  _ happy.  _

“Yeah, Frankie. I’m pretty happy,” Mikey says with a smile on his face. Frank grins back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know th@ was gross and fluffy but listn....listen.......the boys are Tired.....let them rest. they need it


	6. Two by Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beware the aangst 

Gerard is in a shitty fucking mood. He’s been in a shitty fucking mood for two weeks now. Mikey is fucking someone else. He knows he is, because he would've crawled into Gerard’s bunk by now if he weren’t. Pete has been desperately asking after him every time he sees Gerard, and that’s a lot lately, so it can't be him.  Gerard may have an idea of who it _is,_ but he refuses to think it. It becomes too real when he thinks it.

All in all, his life is a crisis. All he wants to do is lie in bed and mope, but Ray has insisted that he do other things, like eat. So he eats and talks to Ray and people who aren’t the same four people he always talks to, and he actually feels a little better. He can't actually tell anyone what's bothering him, but they can all tell he’s upset and offer support.

So Mikey and Frank are getting closer, whatever. It's not the end of the world! Frank is Gerard best friend in the world! Mikey is Gerard’s brother; he loves him! Maybe Mikes just needs a little space. They've been together Mikey’s whole life; it's totally understandable that he would need some space. Frank is a hyperactive little shit; it’s no wonder he’s bouncing from favorite person to favorite person.

So what if Mikey used to come to Gerard for emotional support? So what if Frank used to kiss him back on stage? So what if Mikey put Barnabas Frank’s bunk? So what if Frank has stopped casually laying himself on Gerard when they're near each other? They’ll be fine; they're always fine.

Gerard and Ray walk back to the bus, arguing over who had the weirder friends in high school. Ray wins. Most of Gerard’s friends were nerds or Mikey’s friends, and while Mikey’s friends participated in a lot of underaged drinking, they weren't really _weird._ Ray knew a kid who had the preserved eyeball of his dead mother in a drawer next to his bed, so Ray wins.

They get back to the bus, and neither of them think twice about walking onto it without knocking. It's their bus. They used to have to worry about Mikey and Pete, but that seems to have passed for the meantime. They really should have knocked.

Mikey is sprawled on the bus couch, knees splayed wide. Frank is kneeling on the floor between Mikey’s knees, and he’s giving a really stellar blowjob. Mikey is chanting,” Fuck, fuck, fuck,” under his breath and thrusting his hips. Ray gets on first and sees this scene. His immediate response is to stick an arm out and bar Gerard from entering.

Gerard walks right into Ray’s arm. “What the fuck?” he asks.

The two on the couch haven't noticed them yet. Too wrapped up in what they're doing. Mikey has one arm slung over his eyes  and one hand in Frank’s hair. “You really don't wanna come in here,” Ray hisses, averting his eyes.

Gerard looks confused for a second, then rolls his eyes. “Like fuck I don't,” he says. Thinking that Mikey and Pete are back at it again, Gerard ducks under Ray’s hand and fully enters the bus. If Mikey is back to Pete again, then he’s getting back to normal. This is actually good news.

He is thinking this until he turns his head and actually sees what’s happening. This is most certainly not good news; Gerard would even go so far as to call it bad news. Mikey is supposed to be his. Frank is supposed to be his. He is all at once sad, betrayed, and angry.

“Mikey what the fuck?!” he shouts, fist clenched at his sides. Until now, it was just a thought, a vague inkling. Until now, he could dismiss it as his brain overreacting. Until now, he could claim plausible deniability that his brother was breaking his heart again.

Frank pulls off Mikey’s dick so fast he probably breaks the sound barrier. “Gee, I’m so sorry,” he’s saying before he’s even off Mikey’s cock. It hits Gerard in the gut, because that’s what Mikey says. That’s what Mikey always says when this happens, but Mikey is sitting silent, shellshocked, on the couch.

Gerard is looking solely at his brother. “I thought we had an agreement,” he says. He forces himself to speak--to breathe--around the lump in his throat. “I thought we had rules.”

Mikey stays silent, looking down at Frank. His dick is still out. “I’m so sorry,” Frank says again. Gerard ignores him and takes an angry step toward the pair, toward Mikey.

Ray steps between them. “Hey dude,” he says, hands up and trying to be calming,” calm down. I have no idea what’s happening, but it’s nothing we can’t--”

“Aren’t you going to answer me?!” Gerard says over him, pushing him to the side to make eye contact with his brother. Something is wrong; Mikey is never silent during this, never. “Aren’t you going to apologize for being a _whore?”_

“I--” Mikey starts to say, but he stops. He looks from Gerard to Frank, looking for guidance. It makes Gerard feel sick to his stomach.

“Fuck you,” he says. “ _Fuck you.”_ It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right to say those words to Mikey and mean it, but they’ve been so long coming. He’s done so much to deserve them. “And fuck you too, Frankie,” he adds, looking down at the other man. “I can’t believe you thought this was okay. Fuck you both.”

He turns and leave the bus, slamming the door as much as one can slam a bus door. Gerard starts walking. He doesn’t know where he’s walking to, but he needs to get away. He leaves Frank and Mikey to reap the consequences of what they’ve done.

\----

Mikey watches his brother leave in abject horror. He’s ruined everything. He’s ruined _everything._ “What the fuck was that about?” Ray asks, and Mikey breaks. He curls in on himself and starts bawling.

“Shit,” Frank says. He takes a moment to do his pants back up, then drops to the floor next to Mikey. He wraps his long arms around his friend’s trembling frame. “Mikey,” he coos, resting his chin on Mikey’s head. Mikey sobs harder. He wants to be Mikey again. He wants his brother. He wants everything to be okay. “Shh, shh, mikeyway, it’s okay,” Frank says into Mikey’s hair.

“What _the fuck_ is going on?” Ray asks again.

“Listen,” Frank snaps,”you could help by _leaving.”_

“Fine,” Ray says back. He leaves the bus. His exit is much less dramatic than Gerard’s. Frank sits down on the floor and pulls Mikey into his chest.

“It’ll be okay, Mikes. We’ll--it’ll be okay.” Mikey is used to empty platitudes when he’s having an (anxiety, manic, depressive) episode, but he’s _not_ having an episode right now. He’s not in his own fucking body, so the chemical imbalances can’t be fucking him over. They haven’t been for a two weeks now. The only thing fucking Mikey over lately has been Mikey.

“I’m so fucking shit,” he says, voice muffled against Frank’s chest.  Frank’s entire body _hurts_ . He can _feel_ everything Mikey is feeling right now. He hates himself, and he’s worthless, never does anything right, never gonna make it another year.

“Mikey,” Frank says again. He holds him tighter. It’s really all he can do right now.

\----

Gerard doesn’t know what to do or where he’s going. He’s ten feet from the bus when Ray come out, grabs his wrist and asks,” What just happened? Frankie is freaking out.”

“Good,” is all Gerard can manage to say. He should be. They both should be. Gerard leaves, and Ray doesn’t follow. He makes it far enough away to think he’s out of sight and earshot, then he slumps against the nearest bus and allows himself a moment of weakness. He lets himself cry.

The tears come big and wet. It’s the kind of crying that actors train themselves for years to do. The kind that should be closely followed--or even _preceded--_ by a humid summer thunderstorm. But no storm starts; no rain comes for him to hide in. There’s just Gerard and his tears and the dry fucking heat.

Gerard is angry. He’s so, so _angry._ He doesn’t know at who, if he’s angry at Frank or Mikey or himself, probably all three. It’s been at least five minutes since he leaned against this bus. He should move, doesn’t know where to go, but he starts walking.

He wanders between the buses, barely bothering to wipe his face. Later, he’ll swear it was coincidence that he ended up outside Fall Out Boy’s bus. It takes five knocks before the bus door opens. It’s little Patrick Stump who answers, the entire tour’s little brother. He needs a haircut.

“Is P--”Gerard stops, clears his throat, and tries again. “Is Pete here?” he asks, voice clearer. Patrick nods, taking in Gerard’s red eyes and messy appearance. “Can I come in?”

Patrick just steps aside to clear the path. Gerard climbs on the bus. He hears Patrick shut the door behind them as they both walk into the actual bus.

Pete is sprawled on the whole couch with a bag of potato chips in his lap. Andy is fiddling with his sticks on the floor, and Joe is nowhere to be seen. Pete looks up when Patrick and Gerard walk in.

“Gerard wants to talk to you,” Patrick announces to Pete, like Gerard needs some kind of harald.

“Oh, hey,” Pete says, pulling his hand out of the chip bag without grabbing any. He sits up on the couch, leaving room for Gerard to sit if he wants to. He doesn’t. “What’s up?”

Gerard’s not sure what he meant to do by coming here. He doesn’t know what he’s after. All he knows is that Pete is the only person who will even come close to properly understanding all the emotions that Gerard is feeling when he says,” Mikey’s been sleeping with Frank.”

Pete takes a sharp breath, hands balling into fists at his side. Andy stands up immediately after the words leave his mouth, and he and Patrick beat a hasty and strategic retreat to the outside world.

“How long?” Pete asks.

“I don’t know, two weeks, at least.” Gerard can’t stop wringing his hands, picking at the callouses on his fingers. “Maybe longer. I thought you should know.” That’s a lie. Gerard couldn’t give two shits about Pete and Mikey’s relationship, but he wants someone to hurt as much as he is right now.

“He fucking--I thought--I’m sorry,” Pete finally settles on. “I know Frank’s important to you.” Gerard almost laughs at that. Yeah, important. That sums it up pretty well. He finally takes a seat on the couch, assumes the patented Emotional Distress position of elbows-on-knees-head-in-hands.

“They’re leaving me,” he says toward the bus floor. “Mikey’s fucking dumping me for my best friend.” If Pete finds Gerard’s verbiage odd, he doesn’t comment on it.

“Fuck them,” Pete says, his answer to everything. “Fuck both of them.” Gerard doesn’t know what to say to that other than ‘I’ve been _trying,’_ so he doesn’t say anything. He pulls his knees up close to his chest and tucks his head against them. Nothing can hurt him if he can’t see it.

They sit like that, in silence for a moment, then Gerard starts crying again. It’s louder this time, drier; he’s crying with his whole body. He feels a warm hand on his back, and for a minute he can pretend it belongs to a pale, lanky bassist instead of a short, tan one.

Pete, for all that he’s definitely an asshole, doesn’t seem put out by a guy he’s not great friends with sobbing on his couch. Gerard will try to remember this, try to cut him a little more slack. “You gonna be okay?” he asks after Gerard has been quiet for a few minutes.

Gerard slowly raises his head. The light in the bus hurts his sensitive eyes now. He wipes his nose on his jeans. “Probably not.” He’ll play the show anyway. He freezes. Shit, their set. “What time is it?”

Pete narrows his eyes at the change of subject, but he checks his phone anyway. “Four thirty, why?”

“Shit,” Gerard says, standing up. He feels stiff, but there’s no time for that. “We play at four forty-five.”

Pete doesn’t even give Gerard an obligatory “Shit dude.” He takes about half a second to process what Gerard’s just said, then says,“Run,” and Gerard does.

\----

The show is shit. They’re goddamn professionals, and they weren’t going to cancel a show. Ray has to call back their substitute rhythm guitarist five minutes before the set starts though, because no one can fucking find Frank. He’s not answering his phone, not even for Mikey, who had his cock in him an hour prior.

Seeing Mikey hurts, makes Gerard want to throw up. It makes him want to drink. So, after they play their worst show in years, Gerard throws a few choice words at Mikey, decks him in the face, and then walks away. When one of the local bands offers him a beer five minutes later, he takes it, downs it in one go.

It’s a shock to his system. It’s been over a year since the last time he had alcohol, and it hits him _hard._ At the same time it’s like he never stopped, never got clean. The cramped bus and unbearable heat are still familiar, still welcoming. There’s a stereo playing somewhere, guitars and lyrics he can’t make out. He grabs another bottle from the cooler that someone has thoughtfully filled with ice and left outside.

Gerard is an alcoholic. A recovering alcoholic is still a fucking alcoholic, and Gerard is a goddamn alcoholic. More people show up throughout the night, drawn to the sound of people and the promise of a good time. More people bring more booze, and Gerard finds the hard shit like a hound after a fox. Halfway through that second beer he decided that he’s getting fucking smashed.

He’s got a bottle of shitty, cheap vodka in one hand that he’s been steadily nursing (and sharing. Gerard is nothing if not a giver.) He doesn’t remember where he got it from, but he’s talking to someone. They’re having a conversation he thinks. He doesn’t know what he says. He misses Mikey.

“You’re so pretty,” the man he’s talking to says. His face is blurry. They’re leaning against the side of a bus. Gerard is always against the side of a bus these days. The other man twists a piece of Gerard’s hair in his fingers. Gerard welcomes it, basking in the attention. “So, so pretty.” He leans toward Gerard, maybe to kiss him, maybe to say something. Gerard will never know either way, because the next second he’s turning and puking in the nearest trash can.

The stuff that comes back up out of his stomach is black like tar, and it smells worse. When he’s finished retching he stands up from his hunch over the can. No one has noticed him puking except, presumably, the guy he was talking to. Gerard looks around but can’t find him again.

People are walking past him, ignoring his existence. This is wrong. He shouldn’t be alone. His head’s clearer now; his teeth hurt. Mikey should be here, or Frank or Ray. He should leave. He needs someone, not them. It can’t be them, can’t be Mikey or Frank. He doesn’t know where Ray is.

The world takes a sudden tilt to the left, and Gerard whiteknuckles the metal can to keep himself upright. The stench is starting to hit him, and dry heaves again. He feels his ears pop, and then the world isn’t yelling at him from underwater. The ambient party noise is twice as loud and suddenly clear now; “Dance, Dance” is playing in the distance.

Gerard picks up his bottle off the ground and starts walking. Some of its contents sloshed onto the ground, so there’s only about an inch left in the bottom. It’ll do.

He walks for a while, can’t be more than ten minutes. It should've been closer to three, but he got lost a few times. By the time he’s standing outside Fall Out Boy’s bus for the second time that day, his mouth has gone stale, and he wants to wipe the rancid, vomit taste from it. He swigs the vodka and swishes it, figures the alcohol will kill germs or something, then spits it back out. He takes another swig for courage, and then he figures he might as well finish the bottle so he downs the rest.

Courage sufficiently inflated, he drops the bottle on the ground and marches toward the door and knocks. Andy opens the door this time. He looks surprised to see Gerard back here. “What do you want?” he asks, not maliciously. His voice is tired.

It takes Gerard a minute to process that and figure out how to express why he’s here. Want he wants to express is,” I’m an emotional wreck, and I’m relapsing hard. Help me.” but what actually comes out of his mouth is,” ‘M drunk. ‘Er’s Pete?”

Now that the door’s open, Gerard can hear someone, probably Patrick, shouting in the bus. He the only bit he can understand is, “You fucker!” Andy winces.

“Now’s not a great time,” he says in answer.

“Never is a great time,” Gerard says back. Andy looks at him, confused. His lip ring glints in the light, and Gerard wants to touch it with his tongue. “You’re pretty.”

Obviously deciding that he cannot, in good conscience, leave Gerard alone outside, Andy sighs and slumps. “Come in,” he says, defeated. Gerard stumbles his way onto the bus. Stairs are hard when you’re drunk. Handrails are for pussies.

They walk the few steps into the front room, Andy leading. He starts talking before they get in there.“ ‘Trick, I got another one to babysi--”

“You can’t just lock us all out of the bunks because a boy broke your heart!”  Patrick pounds on the door with both fists. Joe is lying on the floor, blocking most of the walking room and playing with one of Pete’s pill bottles from a small collection on the floor, watching the tablets slide around as he tilts it. There’s no response from the other side of the door, where Gerard assumes Pete is. A few seconds pass and then,” Let me in my bunk, you shit!”

Patrick starts whaling on the door again, and Andy rushes over to stop him. He almost tramples Joe’s dick and falls over in the process, but miraculously crosses the room and grabs both of Patrick’s wrist in his hands. “Stop that,” he says, tugging his hands down,” we need you to be able to play with these.”

Gerard is bad at standing. Standing is hard and not good, not a good thing for him to be doing right now. He spots the couch, thinks that's a good place to not stand, and tries to make his way there. He gets two steps in and trips on something that, upon further inspection, turns out to be Joe’s leg.

Gerard faceplants. Luckily it’s into the couch cushions, but Joe takes a knee to the stomach as he goes down. All the breath whooshes out of him, and he coughs when Gerard moves his leg up, laying himself across the couch.

“The fuck, dude?” Joe asks.

“S’ry,” Gerard mumbles back at him, curling up in a corner of the couch. Andy and Patrick are having a conversation. Patrick is speaking in quick, agitated bursts and Andy in calm reassurances. Gerard watches them, doing his best to follow the conversation.

Andy is holding Patrick by the shoulders, and he’s shaking in Andy’s grip. “--he locked the door before I could find all the bottles. He might be--Andy, he’s not answering; he might be--”

Andy moves one hand and cups Patrick’s cheek. “Calm down, okay? You got all the important ones,” he says. His voice is soft and comforting. “It’s gonna be alright.” Gerard almost believes him. “Go sit down. Make sure those two don’t kill themselves.” He jerks his head toward Gerard and Joe.

Patrick goes, his sobriety making it much easier for him to navigate the Joebsticle course in front of the couch. When patrick sits next to him Gerard looks over. Patrick’s pretty in a weird way. His hair is overgrown and sticking out of a hat pulled too far down; his face is cute and round and full of interesting angles. He radiates warmth. Gerard gravitates toward him. Alcohol makes him friendly, makes him have bad decisions making skills. He hears Andy rap lightly on the door a few times and start talking, but he’s not interested in that.

“Y’re warm,” Gerard says, leaning against Patrick. Patrick stiffens, unsure what to do with strange physical contact. Gerard wraps an arm around Patrick. He’s squishy in the middle in a way most guys Gerard’s slept with aren’t. “Nice,” he adds.

“Okay,” Patrick says. He tries to gently pry Gerard’s limbs off of himself, but Gerard is world octopus impression champ, so it doesn't work out too well. Eventually, Patrick sighs and allowed his new parasitic friend to remain.

Andy is still talking to the door when it opens, revealing Pete Wentz in all his disheveled glory. He’s been crying, black lines down his face giving him away even before his red eyes can.

“Long time, no see, G-man,” is a phrase that Pete will never say again after this night, but it makes him laugh in the moment. It’s not a real laugh, though. It’s broken and watery.

All of Gerard’s drunken exhaustion is gone, tiredness replaced with a weird buzzing at the sight of obvious grief before him. Pete is mourning his and Mikey’s relationship, and that makes Gerard’s skin crawl. Pete never should have _had_ a relationship with Mikey to begin with.

“Pete,” he says, standing as quickly as he can. He nearly faceplants but saves it at the last second. He positions himself safely in front of Joe. “You fucker.” It’s the clearest he’s enunciated all night.

Pete smiles. “Been getting that a lot tonight,” he says. “What did I do this time?”

“You fucking--fuck.” Words are hard. Gerard is expected to always have all the words for everything all the time, and it’s fucking _hard. “_ Fuck you.” Words are hard, and his knuckles ache from when he punched Mikey in the face earlier. He takes a few steps forward and swings with his other hand this time.

Fortunately for Pete, Gerard’s movements are slow and imprecise, and Andy grabs his arm before he makes any sort of contact. Gerard looks at his arm in confusion, sees that he’s been stopped. The fight drains from him.

“Mikey’s been fucking my best friend,” he says. His entire being droops. Andy lets go of his arm.  “And it’s your fucking fault!” He pokes Pete in the chest before his momentary anger fades.

Andy--looking like he’s about to strangle the next person who says some dramatic bullshit, pacifist ideology be damned--throws his arms in the air in surrender and goes to sit by Patrick h“How is this my fault?” Pete demands.

“Mikey,” is all Gerard manages. There’s so much more to say. Pete is an exception that Gerard let Mikey take. If Pete had never gone after Mikey, had _listened_ when Gerard said he should stay away, hadn’t been selfish for once in his goddamn life, then none of this would've happened. It’s Pete’s fault. It _has_ to be Pete’s fault, because it’s not Gerard’s fault. It can’t be Mikey’s fault. It can’t be.

“You got him--confused,” Gerard manages to stutter out. “He’s supposed to love me,” he adds quietly, desperately. “We were fine! He didn’t need you.”

Pete puts his hands up in defense. “Listen, it’s not my fault if he got tired of constantly being cockblocked by his big brother.”

“You fucker,” Gerard says. His diction is getting clearer the angrier he becomes. He lunges forward, grabs Pete by his shirt. He hovers over him, looking down at Pete’s face. He looks genuinely startled. “ Wha’s so great about you anyway?”

Pete breaks into a grin. “Dunno, you wanna find out?” He’s expecting Gerard to drop him, expecting a punch or a knee to the groin or some other angry gesture. Instead, Gerard growls and leans down to kiss him.

Pete stiffens for a second, then he fists the back of Gerard’s shirt and pulls him in. “Really, Pete?” Patrick shouts. Pete flips him off and pulls Gerard’s hair, making him moan. Patrick has been forced out of his own fucking bus a lot today, and it’s pissing him off. Why does _he_ have to be the one herding Joe off the bus. Why can’t he and Andy ever be the obnoxious ones. “We’re fucking in his bunk later,” he says when they’re off the bus. Andy snorts.

Back in the bus, Gerard surges forward, pressing Pete up against the door frame. Pete rolls his hips up against his, and Gerard drops his head back, breaking the kiss and moaning. Pete pulls hard on his hair and moves his mouth down, biting Gerard’s neck. “Fuck,” Gerard breathes, grabbing his hair.

“Yeah,” Pete says back. He moves his free hand down till he finds Gerard’s ass and squeezes. Gerard whines. He drags Pete’s face up and kisses him again. It’s hard and wet and reminds Gerard of the way they kiss when Mikey’s been teasing him for hours and he gets desperate. He doesn’t want to think about Mikey right now, though, so he kisses Pete harder, rubs his hardon against his thigh and sucks on his bottom lip till it’s slick and red and swollen.

Pete pulls at his hair until he breaks the kiss and pulls away enough for them to speak. He leans his head back against the doorjamb. “What the fuck are we doing?” he asks.

Gerard laughs, dry and humorless, then rests his forehead on Pete’s shoulder. “‘M in love wi’ my best friend,” he says to Pete’s shoes. “Who’s fucking m’ baby brother.” He lifts his head. “ ‘M in love with my baby brother, Pete,” he says quietly, a barely there whisper. “‘N’ they’re both leaving me.”

Pete doesn’t know what to say. Gerard is staring at him, not quite maintaining eye contact but not avoiding it either. He’s honestly completely lost at this point. He gets the feeling that Gerard has just admitted something very major to him, but he’s not one hundred percent sure of what it is yet.

“Hurts,” Gerard adds. “Fuck, make it stop.” He rolls his hips, because the feel of his cock rubbing against rough denim is so good, so distracting.

“Fuck,” Pete groans. He kisses Gerard again, sloppy and open. He sneaks his tongue in, and Gerard groans, starts sucking on it. Pete breaks the kiss by tugging Gerard’s hair again. “What do you like?” he asks, because he’s honestly never fucked around with Gerard, at all.

“Want you to fuck my face,” Gerard says without any hesitation. It’s the surest way to get him out of his own head, beyond a drug binge, though that option is sounding more and more appealing. If he’s gonna fall off the wagon then he might as well take a nosedive. Maybe after this.

“Fuck,” Pete groans and arches up off the wall. “Fuck, yeah, c’mon.” He uses his grip on Gerard’s hair to guide him downward, and he goes willingly. Pete rolls his hips against Gerard’s face before Gerard’s even gotten his pants undone, and it’s exactly what Gerard needs. He’s missed knowing exactly what’s expected of him.

He brings his hands up and undoes Pete’s belt, gets his pants open. “Fuck, you’ve got a nice cock,” he says when he sees it. Of course Gerard’s never met a cock he doesn’t like, so the words don’t mean much. He wraps one hand around the base, moving up and down slowly, and looks up at Pete. He’s waiting for permission that he’s not sure Pete knows to give.

“Fuck, you’re so pretty,” Pete says down to him. He runs his hands through Gerard’s hair, brings his thumb down and brushes it along Gerard’s bottom lip. “Gonna look so good sucking my cock.”

Deciding that that is probably the closest thing to proper permission Gerard is going to get, he leans forward and wraps his lips around Pete’s cock. It takes him a minute to find the right way to do it, where he should put his tongue. Pete’s cock is shorter than Mikey’s but fatter, stretching Gerard’s lips. He rests his hands on Pete’s hips, not holding him back, just feeling, and starts moving.

He bobs his head a few times, getting used to the feel in his mouth. Gerard’s been sucking dick too long to have an overly active gag reflex, so it doesn’t take him long to sink down on Pete’s cock, taking steady breaths through his nose till it hits Pete’s stomach and his airway is cut off. He squeezes his fingers into Pete’s hips, tugs at him, trying to tell him to move.

“F-fuck,” Pete says, hips stuttering forward. Gerard makes this choked off moan that gets lost somewhere on the way out, and he tries to open his mouth wider. Pete looks down and experimentally moves his hips, pulling his cock out till just the head is inside his mouth. Gerard looks up at him through dark eyelashes, and the corners of his mouth quirk up. Gerard licks, his tongue broad and flat, against the head then pulls back.

“C’mon, Petey,” he says, tone mocking,” thought you were gonna fuck me.” And it’s nothing, nothing at all for Gerard to slip back into what he used to be. Mikey used to joke that Gerard was gonna end up tongueless and pregnant what with all the dick he rode mixed with his smartass fucking mouth.

He kisses along Pete’s hipbone, bites at where it juts out the most, and Pete shudders. Gerard mouths his way back to Pete’s cock, getting one side of it slick and shiny with spit. Pete’s got a death grip on his hair now, but he’s not holding him still, letting him mouth and lick and kiss wherever he sees fit. “Promise it’ll be good, baby. Won’t break me.” He licks a long stripe up Pete’s cock and ends with a wet kiss to the head. He tugs Pete’s hips forward. “Wanna choke on it.”

This finally gets the memo to Pete’s brain, and he starts moving of his own accord, snapping his hips forward into Gerard’s mouth. It cuts off Gerard’s air every time Pete goes all the way in, and Gerard makes this disgusting, rattling, wet noise every time he breathes. “Fuck yeah.” Pete’s holding him now, holding his head still while he fucks his throat, and Gerard’s nose goes flush against Pete’s stomach every thrust. “Fuck, so fuckin good.” Gerard’s answer is a high pitched whine that gets cut off by Pete’s cock.

It’s quiet. That’s a lie, really. There’s all sorts of noise. The rattle of Gerard’s snatched breaths, the slick sound of Pete sliding in and out if his throat, and Pete’s own breathless noises are just a few, but it’s _quiet._ Pete’s not _saying_ anything. He squeezes Pete’s hip and pushes him back, the universal sign (at least in Gerard’s mind) for, “hey, let me go, I need to say something,” while giving head.

Pete seems to get the message all right, loosening his grip on Gerard and letting his slide off his cock with a wet noise. It’s hard and dark and shiny and dripping with spit, and he has to take a moment to just look at it, lick his lips and think about how _he_ did that. It’s fucking intoxicating. “‘S wrong?” Pete asks. His breathing is coming in labored pants, chest heaving.

Gerard looks up at him, swallows and clears his throat so he can speak. “Call me a slut,” he says. His voice is rough, and the low buzz of alcohol is making him even more blunt than usual. Pete’s eyes go comically wide, but Gerard continues. “Call me a cocksucker.” He closes his eyes and rests his head on the side of Pete’s stomach. “Please. Need it.” He mouths at Pete’s hipbone. “Slut, dumpster, whore. Yeah,” he nuzzles closer, licking Pete’s skin,” wanna be your good little cocksucking whore, please.”

Pete’s staring at him, and he’s pressing reverential kisses against Pete’s skin, as if apologizing for being such a mess of a human being. He takes Pete’s cock back in his mouth, urging him with his hands to start fucking his mouth again.

“F-fuck,” Pete stutters. “Do I just, uh--you’re a whore?” The questioning lilt to his voice sort of ruins it for Gerard, but he makes a happy noise anyway so Pete knows he’s on the right track. “Sorry I’ve literally never had someone ask me this before.” Gerard thinks Pete talks too much for someone who’s getting head, talks too much and doesn't _say_ anything. “You’re--fuck--you’re like the first real slut I’ve ever met.” He says it as a joke, laughing at the end, but Gerard groans and bobs his head on Pete cock, a perverted version of a nod.

Pete keens and doubles over Gerard, hips twitching forward. “Fuck, you’re into weird shit,” he mutters. Gerard tries to agree but all that really makes it out is a high pitched, airy noise. His eyelids flutter closed. “Fuck is that it? Are you one of those people into being humiliated?” Gerard groans, and Pete takes that as a yes. “Fuckin’ weird, dude.”

Gerard’s not sure if Pete is trying to cater to his tastes or just expressing an honest thought, but his cock is taking the lead and deciding it doesn’t care. Pete gets mouthier the closer he gets to an orgasm. The mumbled, questioning words morph into things like,”Fucking take my cock like you’re made for it,” and,” God, your mouth is the best fucking thing.” It’s not quite what Gerard needs, but it’s good enough.

Gerard is not up to speed on Pete’s sexual history. He never asked, and Mikey never told. So he doesn’t know if Pete’s just naturally really sensitive when he gets head or if he’s never gotten this caliber of a blowjob before or if maybe Gerard’s just spoiled by Mikey’s seemingly endless stamina. Either way, it doesn’t seem long enough. Gerard has only just pressed his palm flat against the bulge of his aching cock when Pete’s grip gets impossibly tighter and he holds Gerard’s head down on his cock while he comes. Gerard swallows around him, and Pete’s whole body shudders. His hands go limp in Gerard’s hair, and Gerard pulls away, breathing heavy.

“Best fucking head of my life holy _shit_ ,” Pete gasps, carting his hands through Gerard’s hair. Gerard rests his forehead against Pete’s flat stomach and whines, gripping his cock through his jeans.

“Please,” he breathes. Pete knocks his head back against the bus wall and groans.

“You can’t sound like that right after I come,” he complains. He brings a hand down and squeezes the base of his cock. “ ‘S trying so hard to get back up for you.” Gerard thinks that’s rather selfish considering he hasn’t even gotten to come once yet. He whines again, pressing kisses to Pete’s skin now.

Pete’s hand tightens in Gerard’s hair again and pulls. He follows the tug, head lolling back. He’s looking up at Pete for a split second before Pete’s other hand pushes at his shoulders and he goes sprawling back across the floor, where Joe had been however many minutes ago. Pete thunks down on top of him, knees on either side of Gerard’s legs, pinning him.

“You liked that, huh? “ he asks, pulling Gerard’s hair again. Gerard nods, eyes squinting shut. Pete leans forward and kisses him hard, bites his lip. “You’re gross,” he says, moving to bite his neck,” getting off on sucking my fucking cock. “ He gets a hand under Gerard’s shirt and scrapes his fingernails down his chest. He cups his hand over Gerard’s cock and squeezes. Gerard arches his hips up into it.

Pete lets go of Gerard’s hair to reach down and undo his pants. He tugs them down just far enough to get at his cock and leaves them. “This for me?” he asks, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around it. All Gerard can do at this point is nod vigorously. Pete spits in his other hand and replaces his left with it. He starts pumping his cock, and with his now free hand he tugs Gerard up to kiss him again, leaning down so they meet in the middle.

Gerard gasps into his mouth on every upstroke, making little choked noises in between. His voice is _wrecked_ , every noise that leaves him sounds broken and rough. Pete doesn’t even realize that it’s his name Gerard’s been trying to say until his hand is covered in Gerard’s cum. He lifts it up so he can see it. The passing thought of whether or not two brothers’ cum tastes similar prompts him to lick one of his fingers clean before he wipes his hand on his pants.

Gerard is taking great, heaving gasps of air into his lungs. His heart is in panic mode from the weird lapses in oxygen intake. He feels--he doesn’t feel, actually. His body is boneless, and his head is a whirr of thoughts he can’t decipher. He closes his eyes. “That was the weirdest sex I’ve ever had,” Pete says. Gerard snorts, thinks Pete’s life must have been pretty boring up till now.


	7. An Ancient Love Being

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, guess who's back from the dead fuckers. been workin 5 days a week and sleeping the other two so sorry abt th@. hope this shitty writing makes up for it ✌✌

“Frank,” Ray pounds on the bunk door again, hoping it will yield different results. It doesn’t. He calls Frank’s name again, louder this time.

Mikey is on the couch, curled into a ball and looking like he’s trying to disappear. He was crying earlier, hyperventilating and clawing at his arms. Now he’s quiet, still but for the way his whole body is shaking. Ray could really use some help keeping this band together.

He hears the door bang open and footsteps onto the bus. As expected, when he turns he see Bob there. Any hope he may have elicited is snuffed out though because he’s alone. “You didn’t find him?” Ray asks.

“Nope,” Bob answers,” but I found someone who knew where he was.” 

“And where is he?”

Bob sucks in a breath and blows it back out, sticking his hands in his pockets and making a face like he’d really rather not think about it. “Apparently he’s,” Bob draws the word out, searching for a tactful way to say this. He does not find one. “He’s fucking Wentz on the Fall Out Boy bus.” 

Ray visibly deflates and slumps back against the door when he hears this. He leans his head back and stares at the ceiling. “This is a problem,” he says.

“That’s not the worst part,” Bob adds. Ray’s eyes widen in fear as he looks back at Bob. “He was drunk.” Bob winces after the words leave his mouth like they physically pain him.

Ray pushes himself away from the door. “I’m going to get him,” he says as he moves “ _ Just _ drunk?” he asks as he passes Bob. “That’s all?”

“Dunno; that’s all they said.”

“Great, just fucking great,” Ray says. “Watch those two, will you?” he calls over his shoulder as he exits the bus. Bob doesn’t get a chance to answer because Ray is walking away too fast, headed in the general direction of where he thinks the Fall Out Boy bus might be. He’ll ask someone on the way. 

“Where the fuck is Mikey?” Or he won’t. He stops walking and looks for the source of the voice. Gerard is walking toward him from a completely different direction than the one he was headed in. Either Ray was going the wrong way or Gerard got lost. Both options are equally likely.

Ray looks over his lead singer. There’s a sluggish quality to his movements and a lilt to his voice that Ray hasn’t experienced in almost a year. He’s drunk, and he smells a little bit like puke. Ray is so fucking glad he’s  _ alive _ . 

“Holy shit,” he says. He takes a few quick, large steps toward Gerard and grabs him in a hug. Gerard is too confused to fight it, and Ray figures it’s a pretty good way to keep him from doing something stupid. “Don’t scare us like that you fucking  _ ass.”  _

“I’m gonna kick ‘is ass,” Gerard says into Ray’s shoulder. He wraps his arms around his back and pulls him closer. God, Gerard really fucking needed a hug. “Then ’m gonna kick Frank’s ass.” He hesitates for a moment, thinking. “Then I’m gonna kick m’own ass for bein’ so fucking  _ stupid.”  _

Ray snorts and loosens his hold. He holds Gerard at arm’s length and looks him over. “Are you okay, dude? What the fuck? Pete? Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t fuck Peter Wentz.” 

“I didn’ fuck Peter Wentz,” Gerard says obediently. Ray sighs and closes his eyes against the real world for a moment. He’s staring at their shoes when he opens them again.

“Now say it like it’s  _ true _ .”

“You know I can’t lie when I’m drunk,” Gerard says. 

“Why is your entire family conspiring to break that man’s heart,” Ray says to the sky. He’s not expecting an answer, and Gerard doesn’t give him one beyond a shrug and a sniffle. “C’mon,” he slings an arm over Gerard’s shoulders,” let’s head back to the bus. I think we all need to have a talk.” 

It takes them less than a minute to get back to the bus, and it’s quiet as they enter. Bob isn’t banging on the door as Ray had been. He’s just sitting on the couch drinking a beer. Mikey has moved on to pacing a hole in the floor. “Frank’s not comin’ out,” Bob says as soon as they’re on the bus. Ray figured as much. Bob’s not good at resolving situations that don’t boil down to “I’m bigger than you, so I win” logistics. 

Gerard shoulders his way past Ray and further into the bus. “We could always break down the door,” Ray says. Bob rolls his eyes. Neither of them notice what Gerard's doing for those few seconds; they’re out of practice in babysitting his drunk ass. Gerard uses this to his advantage, and by the time Ray realizes his mistake, it’s too late. The damage is done.

Gerard’s breath hitches, a tiny, breathy,” Mikey,” passing through his lips when he sees his little brother. He is at once both relieved and angry. Mikey looks over, says Gerard’s name in surprise. He grabs Mikey by the shoulders and pushes him against the door to the bunks. “Mikey,” he says again. His hands come up to cup Mikey’s face, fingers stroking his cheekbones. “Mikey, mikeymikeymikeymikey,” he chants. His face moves closer to Mikey’s, lips parting slightly, and then they’re kissing each other for the first time in  _ weeks _ . It feels good, feels warm and soft and like coming home after tour, like sitting down after a long shift, like closing his eyes after not sleeping. 

Mikey stiffens, eyes darting to Ray, but Gerard pets his neck, moves his lips against his brother’s, and he relaxes. Mikey wraps his arms around Gerard’s waist, pulling him closer. They’re hugging and kissing, and Gerard wraps his arms around Mikey’s neck. Mikey sucks on Gerard’s bottom lip, and Gerard remembers why he always forgives him. He loves his baby brother more than he loves nicotine and the sound of rain and the rush of cool air when you walk into an air-conditioned building in the summer. 

“Gee,” Mikey says, voice breathy against Gerard’s mouth. He kisses Gerard again, and it feels like his first cigarette after his detox. It feels like finally being able to cry after keeping up appearances. It feels like coming home, and Gerard knows in that instant that he’s always going to take Mikey back, no matter what.

“What the fuck are we watching right now,” Bob says to Ray. Ray turns his wide eyes from the pair of brothers to Bob, who takes another sip of his beer. Ray walks over and sets himself down next to his bandmate. He extends his open hand, and Bob wordlessly hands the beer over, opens the fridge to get another.

\----

Mikey hears Frank calling for him, calling his name over and over again. He feels Gerard, warm and safe, in his arms, but he can’t see him, can’t find him. He knows his brother is there, knows Gerard needs him, but he just can’t get to him. He can’t reach either of them.

He opens his eyes, not sure when he’d closed them. They sting, and there are crusty, dried tears all along his face. He brings his hands up to his eyes and rubs them, trying to get some moisture back; he drops Barnabas in the process, the bear landing on the mattress next to him. His head is filled with a pulsating, other entity that he’s vaguely identified as Frank in the last few days. It’s screaming at him. 

His body acts before he really thinks about it, and he’s standing and at the door to the front of the bus without really knowing how he got there. There are voices outside, and light is filtering in from under the door. It’s dark in here, quiet, safe. He doesn’t want to leave. He wants to go back to his bunk and wallow in his own misery; he wants to fucking  _ die.  _ The only thing stopping him is that Frank moved his fucking pills. He turns the doorknob without really wanting to. It unlocks automatically when turned from the inside, and the door is unlatched and swinging open before Mikey has a chance to stop himself. 

Frank stumbles backwards as the solid surface behind him swings inward. Gerard holds himself steady enough for Frank to keep himself upright with the hands around his waist. Gerard backs up so that Frank can turn and see Mikey standing in the doorway. He looks fuckin ragged, but Frank is relieved beyond words that he’s still  _ alive. _

“Gee,” Mikey says when his eyes land on his brother. He’s rumpled and smelly and gross and  _ here _ . “Gee, baby.” Mikey reaches out to touch him, run his hand along the skin of his arm, feel how warm and alive he is.

“Frankie,” Gerard says back. He’s a bit confused by the petname, but when the hand running down his arm reaches his hand, he allows the fingers to lace with his. He’s sluggish and affectionate with alcohol.

“Mikey,” Gerard says, and for a moment, a fraction of a second, Mikey thinks that he’s figured it out, that he can tell it’s his baby brother just from the petname, the inflection, the soft touch. Then Gerard pulls his hand away and looks at Frank. “Mikes, did y’tell him?” he asks. His voice is small and anxious.

“Yes,” Mikey says, and Gerard looks back to him, eyes wide. Mikey tries to smile reassuringly, but he’s not sure how well it works. He knows the exact look he needs to give Gerard with his own face, but Frank’s is different. “Gee, we need to talk.” 

“Frankie,” Gerard says. He reaches out then lets his hand drop back to his side, unsure what to do with it. “’S so much--”

Mikey reaches out and grabs Gerard’s hand in both of his before it’s back against him. “I’m not Frankie,” he blurts out. He hears Ray splutter on the couch, and Gerard’s eyebrows make a valiant effort to leave the earth’s gravitational field. “I’m not Frank, Gee,” he says again.

“What?” Gerard asks. Really, what else could be expected of him? In his current state being upright, coherent, and verbal is a fucking gold medal performance.

“I’m not Frank, and  _ he’s  _ not Mikey.” He lets go of Gerard’s hand with one of his and points at Frank. “ _ I’m  _ Mikey.”

“Aaaaand you’ve  _ lost it _ . Okay folks,” Ray stands up from the couch and sets his bottle on the floor,” that’s my threshold for fuckery today. C’mon, Gerard, you and Mikey go talk. Frank,” he puts an arm on Mikey’s shoulder and tries to lead him away,” let’s get you something neither alcoholic nor narcotic.” 

“I’m not fucking high!” Mikey shouts, begging someone to believe him. “And I’m not Frank!” He tries to jerk away from Ray and ends up stumbling back, hitting his head on the door frame. 

“Ow!” Mikey and Frank both exclaim at once. Frank’s hand lurches up to clutch at the spot on his head where Mikey had hit his own. Ray looks at Mikey then at Frank then at Gerard. Gerard looks at Mikey then at Frank then at Mikey again, but this time with furrowed eyebrows. “Fuck that hurt,” Mikey and Frank say. “What the hell?"

“What the fuck is happening right now?” Ray says, to the room at large and, possibly, even to God himself. 

“I’m Mikey!” Mikey shouts. “Gee, baby, please,” he grabs Gerard by the upper arms with both hands,” you gotta--I--I slept with Frank.”

“Okay, yeah, got that,” Gerard says slowly. He looks over Mikey’s face, like if he looks long enough the nose will change shape and the jawline will sharpen. 

“No, no, I mean--before, before this all started, two weeks ago? Three? That night at the hotel, that fight--I fucked up, Gee. I fucked up real bad. You told me no, and I still--” Mikey cuts himself off. His face is hot and his eyes are burning, ready to cry. He needs to take a moment and get his thoughts in order before he goes on. “I’m sorry,” he says reflexively.

“Can we start from the beginning here?” Ray asks. They all look to him. “The very beginning,” he continues,” like, the beginning where Gerard came in here and started macking on Mikey-who-is-Frank-apparently? Because I’d really like to understand what the living fuck is happening right now.” 

“Can you and Bob just-just go away? For a while?” Frank asks. “I think we need a minute.”

“ _ You  _ need a minute?” Bob asks in disbelief. 

“C’mon.” Ray grabs Bob by the collar and starts walking. He’s known Mikey long enough to have lived through some of his breakups. This isn’t something he wants to risk interfering with. He lets go of Bob’s collar, and they both obediently shuffle off of the bus.

“Gee,” Mikey says when they’re gone. “Gee, pretty.” He moves one hand up, cups Gerard’s cheek. “I’ve missed you so much. I--” He snorts; this is possibly the stupidest thing he’s ever laughed at. “I want to hug you, but I’m too short to do it the right way.” His voice breaks, watery, on those last few words. He blinks and a single tear rolls down either side of his face. “I missed you so much.”

Like floodgates, like a zit, like an expired condom, the barrier holding Mikey back breaks down, and so does he. “What if we don’t change back?” he asks through tears. “What if we’re stuck? What if-wh-wha-what if I-what if I broke every-everything?” He’s hiccuping now, stuttering and sniffling. “What if I don’t ever get to hold you again, Gee?” he whispers, since it’s the only way his voice doesn’t break.

“Oh, Mikey,” Gerard says, finally seeing his little brother in the broken human before him. “Mikey, mikeymikeymikey, c’mere.” He gathers Mikey into his arms, wrapping him securely in warmth and affection. “Y’fucked up,” he says softly into familiar-but-not-right hair. Mikey sobs. “You did, and I’m not gonna--not gonna to pretend you didn’t.” Stringing words together is a challenge, but Gerard is managing. “You broke the goddamn rules, Mikes.” 

“I  _ know.  _ I’m so so-sorry.”

“I helped,” Frank offers from the side. He’s not sure where he fits into this emotional conversation, but he definitely does somehow. By god is he gonna figure it out. Gerard turns his head to look at Frank. “I mean I-I slept with him. Even though he’s your brother, I still did. I knew it’d upset you.” He looks down at the floor, scuffs his shoe against the carpet. “I kinda hoped it’d make you jealous,” he admits. He looks up to gauge Gerard’s reaction. He thinks it’s mostly disbelief. “I mean, I also really wanted to bang Mikey--have you seen this?” He gestures to the body he currently inhabits.

“You’re really not helping,” comes Mikey’s (Frank’s) weak voice, muffled even more by Gerard’s chest. Gerard snorts.

“What I’m trying to say,” Frank continues, frantically trying to pull his foot out of his mouth,” is that you shouldn’t  _ just _ blame Mikey. I knew it was a bad idea, and I still agreed.” 

“Frankie,” Gerard says. He peels one arm off of Mikey’s back and extends it toward him. “C’mere.” He wiggles his fingers, and Frank cautiously steps forward. Gerard grabs him, pulls him into the hug. Frank wraps his too-long arms around both of them, and Mikey is clinging to their shirts with both hands like a toddler.

“We’ll talk more, later,” Gerard says after a few moments,” after you--you--go back. Which you  _ will do. _ ” He says it like he himself will grab Satan by the balls, if he has to, to put their minds right. Mikey believes him.

They stay like that, wrapped in each other in a way that would be unbearable were it not for the bus’s blessed air conditioning, for a little while longer. It’s really much too long for a hug, but none of them really want to break it up. They separate only when Frank starts giggling. “We’re gonna have to tell the guys that you two’ve been fuckin’,” he explains through giggles. “God, imagine Bob’s  _ face.” _

\----

Frank and Mikey stand in front of the couch where Bob, Gerard, and Ray have all gathered. Like some kind of bastardized family meeting, they’ve sat them down in the living room to have a talk. Unanimously, they’d decided that having a full band meeting ASAP was more important than ironing out exact specifics of what their relationship is right now. 

“So, from the beginning,” Mikey says,” yeah, okay.” He takes a deep breath and prepares for the burned bridges that Pete writes so often about. He wants to reach out, always imagined Gerard and himself delivering the information to the rest of the band with their hands clasped in each other’s, but Mikey Way is good at nothing if he’s not good at ruining things for himself. “So, Gerard and I fuck, each other, a lot, since I was sixteen.”

Bob’s eyes widen and start darting around the room frantically. “I swear to god if there’s a camera in this fucking room I will--”

“It’s not a joke, Bob,” Gerard says. He’s got his knees pulled up to his chest so that he can bury his face in them. His selective exhibitionism doesn’t extend to situations like this.

“So, wait,” Ray says,”  _ you’re  _ Mikey in Frank’s body,” Mikey nods,” and  _ you _ , Mikey, in Mikey’s body, have been incestuously  taking it up the ass from your big brother since sophomore year. Do I have that right?” Gerard, who has been slowly curling in on himself the whole time Ray spoke, starts groaning into his knees. 

“I mean not exactly that way, but pretty much yeah,” Mikey says.

“So all the times you shared rooms--”

“Yeah.”

“and when you picked up girls together--”

“Yeah.”

“and when you locked us out of the van, and--”

“Yeah, Ray, Gerard and I have had gay sex on almost every conceivable surface, including where you’re sitting right now. Are you done?” Ray shuts his mouth and nods. He’s still overwhelmed with morbid curiosity, but he’ll probably have to learn to live with it. 

“I need another drink,” Bob says.

“So do I,” Gerard mumbles miserably. Ray swats him in the arm. “Ow, fuck you.” Gerard hits him back. 

“You’re on detox watch again,” Ray tells him. A realizations hits. “All those times when Mikey was with you the first time--”

“Yes, Ray,” Mikey cuts him off before he can get started again. “I sucked his fucking dick so he would settle the hell down, is that what you wanted to hear?” Ray doesn’t really know how to answer that, because the answer is  _ yes.  _ He’s going to have to take a good long look at himself on a later date. Frank makes eye contact with him, and they share some type of look that Ray thinks means he understands.

“What’re you guys gonna do?” a voice asks from the Gerard-ball on the corner of the couch. He sounds so scared to even be asking the question, and Mikey can’t take it. He moves the scant feet to be touching Gerard, sets a hand on his back and rubs circles with his thumb. 

“Nothing,” he says firmly. He crouches down, gets his head close to Gerard’s. Suddenly he’s seventeen again, and there’s a man muttering to his wife about having to share the train car with faggots.  “They’re not gonna do anything, Gee. I won’t let them.” Gerard leans into Mikey’s side. The way he fits there is familiar, even if he seems bigger now.

“Dude, you’re being super dramatic right now,” Ray says,” I don’t think any of us are gonna, like--what even? File a police report? Beat you up?”

“Bob might do that,” Frank says,” but probably just because you looked at him wrong.” Bob shrugs.

Gerard barks out a laugh and relaxes a little in Mikey’s arms. “Do you know how scared we’ve been?” he asks. “You can’t really get a feel for the way someone will react to this.” 

“Well, Bob and Frank don’t really have a frame of reference,”Ray reasons. All the others look at him. His eyes widen. “ _ I’d _ never fuck either of my brothers,” he adds hastily,” but my brothers don’t look like you two, so, like, I  _ get _ it. I guess.”

“Can we move on to the part where you two Freaky Friday’ed each other?” Bob asks, gesturing to Mikey and Frank. “I’ve heard enough about all...this.” He waves his hand vaguely at the Ways.

“Right,” Mikey says. He stands, squeezing Gerard’s shoulder as he steps away. “Uh, that’s actually both more and less complicated to explain? We slept together--which I am  _ still _ sorry about,” he adds, looking at Gerard.

“Your apologies have a greatly diminishing marginal value, Mikes,” Gerard says. Mikey’s heart aches to change the past, change himself. Gerard squeezes his hand, offers him a weak smile. “But I think I can use one more.” 

Mikey’s breath rushes out of him, and he closes his eyes, says a silent thank you to whatever deity is looking out for him. “I’m gonna change,” he says, and he swears to himself that it won’t be just another broken promise. Gerard smiles up at him, and Mikey swears harder. 

“We still have no explanation,” Bob points out.

“Yeah, as far as we can tell there isn’t one,” Frank says. “Uh, we can also read each others’ minds?” he offers.

“I’m so fuckin done,” Bob mutters. “Fucking emo-ass black magic, pissed off a goddamn demon--God’s fuckin’ angry at us or some shit.”

“Is that all?” Ray asks. Frank and Mikey give him matching confused looks. “Earlier, you--Mikey hit his head, and Frank acted like it hurt him, too.”

“Shit,” Frank hisses,” you’re right.” Before anyone can react, Bob leans forward and flicks the back of Frank’s hand. “Ow!” Frank and Mikey both say, jerking their hands away. 

“Holy fuck.”

“Okay, that’s definitely new,” Mikey says.

“Pretty sure we would'a noticed before now,” Frank agrees. He reaches out and runs his finger along Mikey’s arm, and feels the ghost of his own touch. “This is so fucking trippy.” His finger keeps moving. “Dude,” he says, looking down at Mikey, wide-eyed,” we gotta fuck. Ow, what the fuck?”

Mikey rubs at his shoulder where the phantom pain of the slap he just landed on Frank is. “Okay, sorry, that was much harder than I meant it to be, but Frankie, what the hell? Not the time.”

“Something else I don’t get,” Ray interjects,”is if this is some overarching plot bodyswap bullshit, which fucking moral do you guys need to learn before you’re switched back?” 

“All of them, probably,” Mikey admits. “I’m not really a shining example of a good human being.” 

“None of us are, though,” Bob says. “I’m a complete asshole; why didn’t it happen to me and Ray?”

“Because Ray is a literal angel,” Gerard says,” and also you didn’t fuck him. I get the feeling that part is sort of important.” Bob nods and shrugs.

“Fair enough.”

“Is this some kind of infidelity curse,” Mikey says, eyes going wide. Frank snorts. “No, no, think about it,” he says, thumping his hand against Frank’s chest. “That makes, like, total sense right? I cheated on Gerard one too many times, and some kind of ancient love being got pissed at me.” The room is silent save for the sound of cloth sliding against itself as the three men on the couch all shift to give each other disbelieving looks.

“That’s the most batshit insane thing I’ve ever heard anyone say,” Frank deadpans,” and I’ve popped pills with him.” He jerks his thumb at Gerard. 

Mikey throws his hands up in the air. “You are in my body,” he reminds the room,” our consciousnesses or souls or some shit got swapped around, and you’re telling me you  _ don’t _ think some kind of supernatural shit?”

“He--no, yeah, he has a point,” Ray says.

“Definitely some kind of spirit shit,” Bob agrees. Frank rolls his eyes when Gerard starts nodding his head earnestly.

“So how do we fix it?” Frank asks. “Cause waiting hasn’t worked, and the longer this goes on the more fuckin weird symptoms emerge.”

“Have you tried fucking Gerard?” Ray asks. Bob elbows him in the ribs. “Fuck, ow--no I’m serious! If you think, like, fucking other, not Gerard people is the problem, then maybe? That, or like, emotional makeup sex?”

“‘Healthy communication‘ is the phrase there, I think,” Frank says.

“Like they know anything about that. They’re barely functioning adults.”

“Hey!” Gerard protests,” I’m in an internationally famous rock band. I think I’m pretty damn functional.”

“If ‘functional’ was a prerequisite for rock stardom, I don’t think the genre would exist,” Ray says at the same time that Bob points out, “You’re a relapsing alcoholic.”

“Fine, why don’t we all just list off everyone’s problems,” Gerard mutters. He stands and crosses his arms. “I don’t want to associate with you two anymore if you’re just gonna shit on me.”

“C’mon this isn’t helping,” Mikey says. “I think Ray’s idea makes sense. Maybe we should fuck Gee.”

“‘We’?” Gerard squeaks. Mikey waves a hand between himself and Frank. “Oh, for some reason I thought you meant the whole band.” Bob chokes on his own spit at that.

“No, no, no thank you--no. No,” he says firmly, once his voice is back. Ray says nothing. “You three can do this weird science experiment yourselves.”

“This is gonna be so awesome,” Frank says.He prances over and hangs off of Gerard’s shoulder. “Gee, Gee,” he says,” we’re gonna fuck your brains out, for  _ science.” _

Mikey snorts, and Gerard’s face goes red. “For Christ’s sake,” Bob groans. Frank sticks his tongue out at him. Then, there are several moments of silence where a dawning realization sweeps over the whole band.

“Not on the bus!” Ray exclaims. 

“Aw, c’mon Ray,” Frank whines. “What if we give you guys advanced notice?”

“That’s just more time for me to figure out how I’m gonna beat your ass,” Bob says. Frank pouts at him. 

“We’re putting down an absolute ban on all fucking on this bus,” Ray gestures broadly to said bus,” from here until then end of time. No threesomes on this bus.” He taps Bob lightly on the chest with the back of his hand. “Bob, back me up on this.”

“No threesomes on the bus,” Bob readily agrees. “Or two-somes, or jacking off on the couch.”

“So what, you want us to have an orgy on the lawn?” Frank asks. “ The media won’t have a field day with that or anything.”

“Oh shut up,” Bob says. “ We have another off day in two days.”

“It’ll give you time to sort yourselves out like adults,” Ray adds. Frank rolls his eyes, and Mikey raises one eyebrow. “You can’t fix all your problems by putting your dick in them.”

“We can try,” Frank insists.

“Okay, this conversation is going nowhere,” Mikey finally cuts in. “We have a plan now, and we’re all on the same page. Band meeting adjourned.”

“That means we should leave, I think,” Ray stage whispers to Bob,” and let them have emotional talks without us.” He starts to stand even as he’s speaking. Bob nods and follows suit. “No fucking!” Ray calls back over his shoulder as he and Bob shuffle off the bus again. There’s a chorus of affirmative noises after, so he assumes they’re probably going to listen. Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on tumblr [@preblematic](http://preblematic.tumblr.com) for updates in the next seven months it takes me to update


	8. Information Highway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOUR BITCH IS BACK, and it didn't even take 7 months this time, only like......five. There's no porn in this chapter bc y'all are Thirsty and need to be taught some patience, but it's kind of starting to wind down the actual plot so yay!

    As Ray and Bob shuffle off the bus into the evening, Frank drops down on the opposite end of the couch from Gerard, leaving the middle empty. Mikey, still standing, looks to his brother. Gerard is staring at Frank, at the way Frank still sits like he’s five inches shorter, legs tucked under him. “Gee,” Mikey says.

    Gerard turns his head to look at Mikey now. He’s standing awkwardly in the little floor space that the bus provides. When Gerard raises his eyebrows over bloodshot eyes, Mikey half walks and half falls his way forward into his unexpecting brother’s lap. Gerard ‘oof’s, and there’s startled movement from the other end of the couch and a tiny, short-lived burst of fright coming from the ball of Frank in Mikey’s head, but he doesn’t care. Gerard’s arms hesitantly settle around him as Mikey buries his face in his neck.

    “Missed you so much,” Mikey whispers. Gerard’s arm tighten around him, and Mikey feels like he’s going to crack from all the emotions flooding him. “Never gonna leave you like that again.”

    “Missed you too, Mikes,” Gerard mumbles into the top of Mikey’s head. He moves his hand, coaxes Mikey to move and look at him. He leans forward and nuzzles their noses together briefly, then moves so their foreheads are leaning against each other. He looks into the familiar eyes of one of his best friends, and his buzzed brain marvels at the situation they’re in. “Frankie,” he says, tilting his head over to where Frank is still curled on the end of the couch, shamelessly eavesdropping. He does startle a bit when the attention shifts to him though, eyes going wide and innocent. It’s such a Frank-like expression that Gerard has to smile. “Can I kiss you?”

    Frank furrows his eyebrows behind Mikey’s glasses for a moment. “Uh,” he says, darting his eyes between the floor and where Gerard’s holding Mikey’s head like he’s about to devour him. “Sure?”

    As soon the word is said, Gerard turns his head and kisses Mikey. He’s kissed Frank’s mouth plenty of times, but never very long, never with so much _meaning._ They drunkenly madeout after one of their early shows, and that’s the furthest either of them has taken it. Mikey moans, brings his thumb up to pet Gerard’s cheek, and a thought strikes him.

    “It was you,” Gerard says, pulling away only slightly. “In the bunks.”

    Mikey nods and brings his other hand up to cup Gerard’s face, ignoring the questions emanating from Frank. “I missed you so much that it hurt,” he admits. “I need you--needed you, and you weren’t--”

    “Shh, shh, pretty, s’okay,” Gerard says, cutting him off before he can work himself up.

    He pulls him down, tucks Mikey’s face against his shoulder again and starts petting his hair with one hand, resting the other on his hip. Mikey turns his head so the side of his face is resting against Gerard’s shoulder and he can look at Frank. Mikey feels amusement, and, a few seconds later, Frank giggles.

    “What?” Mikey asks, frowning.

    “You look like a hedgehog,” Frank replies, smiling.  Mikey’s been too preoccupied to bother with hair upkeep, so the the previously buzzed sides of Frank’s head are shaggy, and his dark roots are showing under the bleach job. Gerard’s been petting him the wrong way, like a cat, making it stand up in a way that should be temporary, but ends up being semi-permanent due to the grease that Mikey has severely neglected to wash out of Frank’s hair.

    “Your mom looks like a hedgehog,” Mikey says back. Frank’s amusement intensifies.

    He snorts and reaches out to smooth down the prickly side of Mikey’s head, feeling his own touch on the top of his head just like he was feeling Gerard’s a moment ago. Then he recoils. “You’re _disgusting,”_ he says, staring at his hand in abject horror. “I can’t believe I willingly sleep with you.” Gerard’s hand tightens on Mikey’s hip; the arm around his back pulls him closer. Frank feels the constricting hold on his own chest and cringes at what he’s just said. “Sorry.” A few seconds of silence follow, then,” We should probably talk about this, huh?”

    Mikey makes a noise like he’s drunk too much on a long drive and someone just flipped the lock on the gas station restroom. “Do we have to?” he groans, burying his face into Gerard’s shirt once more. “Can’t we just ignore all of our problems until they get us killed, like adults?”

    “Michael James Way,” Gerard says disapprovingly.

    “Oo, you only only call me that when I’m in _trouble,”_ Mikey breathes. He wiggles in Gerard’s lap, trying to distract him from the subject at hand. Gerard seems unaffected, but Frank’s breath hitches. He’s never seen them together, doesn’t know what either one of them is like with the other.

    “I know what you’re doing,” Gerard says blandly. “‘S not gonna work.”

    “Really? What am I doing, baby?” Mikey asks. Before anyone answers, Mikey leans forward and starts kissing Gerard’s neck. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

    “Stop it,” Gerard says, but he’s tilting his head to the side anyway. “Mikes, this’s--we gotta talk about this. Fuck.” Mikey latches onto the soft spot at the back of Gerard’s jaw and sucks. Gerard might try to say something else but whatever it is gets lost in the helpless moan that comes out instead.

    “Am I trying hard enough, Gee?” Mikey teases.  Mikey kisses back up Gerard’s jaw and kisses him properly again, bites his bottom lip. “Do you still wanna talk?” Gerard groans and nods even as he grabs Mikey’s hips (Frank’s hips. They’re wider, but just as boney.) and arches up so they’re grinding against each other. Mikey can feel arousal then frustration from Frank, then, curiously, nothing. Like the channel’s been switched off. Any other time he would ponder this awhile longer; as it is, he barely notices.

    Gerard gets a hand up under Mikey’s shirt and splays it out over the curve of his spine. Frank comes to stand behind Mikey, slowly wrapping his arms around Mikey’s waist and nuzzling into his neck. Gerard smiles and lets Mikey’s tongue enter his mouth. Just as he really starts to accept that he’s going to do this now and hate himself later, Mikey is wrenched away from him.

    “What the hell?” Mikey says. Frank has dragged Mikey up and off of Gerard with his arms threaded under Mikey’s armpits and locked around his ribcage. “Frank, put me down, fucker.”

    “I’m sitting you over here,” Frank says, dragging Mikey over to the far end of the couch. “And I’m sitting here.” He drops down into the middle seat of the couch. “And we’re _all_ gonna keep it in our pants while we _talk_ about this.”

    “Fine!” Mikey says loudly. He crosses his arms over his chest and curls up, defensive. “Okay, fine, let’s fucking talk.”

    He’s met with silence from both sides. After thirty seconds of this he huffs. “Really, guys? _Really?”_

    “Well where do we start?!” Frank yelps. “Like, there’s no precedent for this sort of thing!” He waves his arms and begins to speak faster.  “Do I like--should I ask for permission to keep fucking you? What about that whole threesome thing? And the _other_ threesome thing that you brought up the other day?” His arms droop, and he curls in on himself a bit. “What the hell are we _doing,_ mikeyway?”

    “Each other, hopefully.” Mikey flinches at the anger rolling off of Frank. He’s assaulted with an image of Frank grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him until he takes this seriously. Apparently he’s not trying to hide his intentions from Mikey’s brain anymore.

    “Damn it, Mikey,” Gerard snaps, unaware of Frank’s own reprimand. “Can’t you be a serious adult for once in your fucking life?” Mikey hangs his head, looking for all the world like a child who just got told off in front of the class. He mumbles something, too quiet to be heard. “What?” Gerard demands.

    “I said ‘I’m sorry,’” Mikey speaks again, only slightly louder this time. He’s staring down at his hands in his lap. “I’m used to running away from my problems, y’know? Force of habit.”

    “This doesn't have to be a problem,” Frank says. “You guys can, I dunno, fuck each other silly, or whatever, see if it switches us back. I don’t have to be involved in this any more than is absolutely necessary.”

    “I want you to be involved,” Mikey says quickly. He reaches out, like he’s going to grab Frank’s hand, but stops partway through and drops his hand back down to his own lap, following it with his gaze. “I,” he pauses, steels himself,” I want you,” he admits. “More than just for sex. I want, god, I want _everything_ .” He looks up and over at Gerard, at his beautiful older brother, then at Frank, his best friend, and he _wants_ . He wants to climb back in Gerard’s lap, and he wants to kiss Frankie while they bicker over coffee, and he wants to flop himself down on top of the both of them in a real bed at night, and he wants to be able to watch them kiss and know that it _means_ something.  “And I can't have it, and I don’t _deserve_ it, but god, I want you both,” he finishes, hanging his head again.

    “Mikey,” Frank chokes out. He doesn’t say anything else, though he probably should.  He reaches out, though, rests his hand on the side of Mikey’s neck, right over the scorpion and rubs his jaw with his thumb.

    “Y’re a fucking mess,” Gerard says, not unkindly. He stretches his arm over Frank’s shoulders so he can brush his fingers against Mikey’s skin. He’s pressed up against Frank’s side now, and it’s fine. It’s comfortable. It’s right. “Anybody ever tell you that, mikeyway?”

    Mikey barks out a startled laugh. “Once or twice, yeah.” He leans into the heat and protection of Frank’s side, and adds his hand to theirs against his skin. Their fingers all mix together in an odd but not unpleasant tangle. Somebody squeezes their hand, and the other two squeeze back.

    Mikey shifts, tucks his head under Frank’s chin and sets his free hand in Frank’s lap. Gerard grabs it in his own. “So what? We’re a fucking unit now?” Frank asks. He can feel the way Mikey shrugs his shoulders.

    “Does it matter?” he asks. “Can’t we just fucking _be?”_

“No, we can’t,” Frank says. “You can’t do that with a normal relationship, and you sure as hell can’t do it with whatever incest sodomy threesome clusterfuck this is.” Mikey shrinks in on himself as Frank speaks, curling against his chest. Frank can feel panic, electric and biting, zapping through Mikey’s head and, subsequently, his own. He sighs. “We don’t want to fight, Mikes.” He brushes his fingers soothingly up and down Mikey’s arm. They’re all quiet for a few moments.

    “It’s hard,” Mikey says eventually, his voice muffled by the fabric of Frank’s shirt. “Talking about it, I mean. Because,” he sniffles, pulls himself together, and sits up straight,” I love you guys, but it--you can’t be _enough_ . Nobody’s ever _enough_ , no matter how I feel about them, and I hate it, and I just want us to be _us_ , no rules no singular commitments, no expectations except being in this fucking band.”

    “That’s how people get _hurt_ , Mikey.” Gerard says, his voice almost cruel, like he’s speaking to a child who should know better. “When nobody knows what the rules are or how they apply or what’s expected of them,” his voice is getting steadily louder, his words more rushed, as he goes on,”or if they’re even fucking _wanted_ or just fucking annoyingly fucking omnifuckingpresent. That’s how people get fucking _hurt,_ Mikey.” He’s pulled away from them now, body language closed off. “When nobody knows if the rules apply to them, and nobody knows if they’re allowed the same fucking privileges. You can’t just assume that everybody thinks the same way as you, because I fucking _don’t,_ and you can’t just--” He cuts himself off, bringing his hands up to wipe away tears before they escape.

    There’s clearly something anecdotal going on here. What Gerard is saying is too specific for there to not be. “Gerard,” Mikey says. He shifts, squeezes Frank’s hand once, and Frank squeezes back encouragingly. Mikey reaches his free hand out to rest on Gerard’s tense arm. “What happened? What’re you not telling me?”

    Gerard brings his hands down from his face, tangles them together in his lap instead, so he can look at them and not at Mikey. He sniffs once, clears his throat. “Back in April,” he starts,” when Jordan called me up for that feature spot, y’know?” Mikey nods his head. Damn near everyone in the scene knows Jordan Buckley, because he’s loud and charismatic and will do just about anything after a few drinks. “Well, Keith was there.”

    “Yeah, obviously.” He’s the goddamn lyricist; of course he was there. Mikey thinks he knows where this is going, though. He’s told the same story with different nouns a million times before.

    “‘Nd he was nice,” Gerard goes on,” ‘nd funny, 'nd he’s tall, and you,” he waves his hand at Mikey,“ you were already on your goddamn Pete train two months before tour fucking started, and I--he’s so hot, Mikes. I’ve had a thing for him for _years_ ; you know that.” Mikey does know, has known. When you sleep, eat, tour, and live with someone it’s hard not to notice when they’ve got a hardon for someone else. “He wanted to take me to dinner,” Gerard says with a watery smile. “But I didn’t know what the fucking rules are, Mikey. Because we never fucking _talk_ about them.” Gerard sighs and wipes at his puffy eyes again. “I didn’t want it to be Bert all the fuck over again,” he says quietly, then, louder, adds,” I don’t want _this_ to be Bert all the fuck over again ”

    “Nobody wants it to be Bert all the fuck over again,” Mikey says. “God, Gee,” he reaches out, takes both of Gerard’s hands in his,” I care about you. We care about you.”

    Frank puts a hand over top of the hand that Gerard is resting on his thigh, and Gerard looks at him. “You think I’m gonna chicken shit out on you?” Frank asks. “Run away when you try to call it what it is? Fuck, Gerard, we’ve known each other for years; you think I’d do that?”

    “I don’t know what anyone fucking does anymore, Frankie!” Gerard says loudly. He pulls his hand away sharply and wraps his arms around himself tightly. The brothers seem to have some of the same coping mechanisms. “Mikey’s fucking you.” He gestures shortly between the two of them. “ _I’m_ apparently fucking Pete.” He jabs at himself. “You two are invasion of the goddamn bodyswappers, and I’m drunk for the first time in fuck all.” He drops his head down into his waiting hands.

    “This a real fucking dive bar pit of a situation we’ve made; isn’t it?” Frank says. Mikey snorts, and even Gerard gives a weak laugh. Frank smiles at them, puts a hand on either of their shoulders. “C’mon, guys, we’re internationally famous rockstars. Having dysfunctional relationships is in the job description. We can do this.”

    “You really want this to work,” Gerard says, somewhat surprised. Frank nods “When did you get so invested? Last I knew your romance ended with the setlist.”

    “You’re my fucking best friends,” Frank says with feeling. He sits up a little more, looks between the two of them. “I love your dumbasses,” he finally says. He drops his eyes downward, staring at nothing, really. “Think I have for a while, really. And you’ve both been--had other people, y’know?” He glances up at them both briefly. “I was never an option, ‘cause I’m just Frank, and I’ll always be here, and maybe it’s my fault, too, because I never really tried, but I realized that I wanted both of you, and I didn’t think it was possible. I didn’t want to choose or make the wrong choice, but god,” he blinks quickly, clearing watery eyes,” it was never _just_ stage antics, Gee, not for me.”

    “This is turning into a fucking sob fest,” Mikey says, wiping at his eyes. “You fuckin’ saps.” Gerard snorts and tugs Mikey closer. Mikey goes willingly, climbs over Frankie till he’s sitting in the middle of both their laps.

    “Group hug, motherfuckers,” Frank says, wrapping his arms around them. They both indulge him, wrapping their arms around each other. Gerard yawns into Mikey’s armpit, and Frank snorts. They stay like that for a few moments before anyone speaks.

    “So, just so we’re clear,” Gerard says somewhere in the vicinity of Mikey’s right nipple,” could I have let a nice boy take me out to dinner in Jersey? Would that have been okay?”

    “Gee,” Mikey says, pulling back to look at his face. “Gee, I never, ever meant to make you think that you,” he pauses, takes Gerard’s hand in both of his,” that you had to be some kind of longsuffering, ever faithful housewife.” He runs a nervous hand through his hair, and it sticks out in all directions after. “You feel things for people with your whole fucking, like, _soul,_ or some shit.” He’s staring down at their intertwined hands as he speaks. “I never expected you to be, like, chaste for me, not after everything we’ve been through. God, before all this I honestly thought you and Frankie had been fooling around for years.”

    A lot of things click into place for Gerard just then. He realizes that Mikey hadn’t been _abandoning him_ for Pete. He’d been giving him alone time with Frank. Because that’s what brothers _do_ ; they let each other have alone time with the (other) person they’re fucking.

    “That explains so fucking much,” Gerard says, voice awed.

    “You guys are just a trainwreck of bad communication skills, aren’t you?” Frank chimes in. Mikey barks out a laugh hunching over Frank with the force of it, and Gerard just smiles sadly.

    Mikey glances down through his eyelashes at him, then leans down and tucks his head against Gerard’s shoulder. “Let a nice boy take you to dinner, pretty,” he says. “Hell, let a nice girl take you to dinner. I’ll be waiting for all the details.” There’s a tiny noise from Frank, something like a hum of agreement. “Frankie, you wanna wait up for this chump with me?”

    Frank giggles and runs his finger lazily along the side of Gerard’s arm. “I guess,” he says with faked disinterest. “Dunno what we’d do in the meantime, though.” His grin suggests otherwise, however.

    Gerard rolls his eyes at them. “You’re both insufferable,” he says affectionately, but his cheeks are red, and he’s--he thinks he might be happy. He thinks he could continue to be happy like this.

    “Can I go back to Pete when this is all over, then?” Mikey asks after Frank stops giggling.

    “You can go back to him tomorrow if you want; I don’t give a shit,” Frank says. He shrugs, awkward given his position.  “Secret’s already out; don’t give my body any weird fuckin’ diseases.”

    Two sets of eyes turn to look at Gerard, waiting for his answer. Gerard inhales deeply then sighs. “Do what you need to, Mikes,” he finally says. He shifts so his arm is around Mikey, “I’ll be waiting here, just, maybe not alone this time, yeah?” Frank hums in agreement, and Gerard smiles his stupid happy smile like he gets when he realizes that his life is real and that he’s changed the world.

    “God, you’re adorable,” Mikey says before he can stop himself. He usually follows a statement like that up with  an affectionate hair ruffle or a kiss or, on occasion, pressing Gerard’s mouth further down on his cock. This time, though, he just smiles at him with Frank’s pretty mouth. It’s such a stupid fucking smile, the one that takes over Mikey’s face when Gerard makes him laugh so hard he snorts coffee out of his nose. Gerard can’t take it.

    “Oh, for christ’s sake,” he mumbles, giving up on the whole self control thing. He reaches out and grabs the bare skin of Mikey’s upper arm and tugs him closer. Mikey expects another kiss, but Gerard just tugs him closer to his chest and rests his chin on top of his head. “You’re such a fucking dork, Mikes,” he says. “And maybe I’m high as shit right now, but I fucking love you.”

    Mikey hugs him back, burying another stupid smile in the fabric of his shirt. “I love you too, Gee,” he says softly. Real Emotions have always made him feel kind of icky on the inside, but, by god, he tries for his brother. Gerard closes his his eyes and sighs happily.

    “You wanna go get food?” Frank asks after long minutes of companionable silence. Gerard’s hand stills where it’s been petting Mikey’s back, and Mikey perks up from where he’s resting his head on Gerard's shoulder.

    “Fuck yes. I’d kill a man for a hamburger,” Gerard agrees.

    “Well let’s go then,” Frank says.

\----

 

    It’s sort of a ridiculously long walk from the venue to civilization. After about fifteen minutes they’re finally on a paved sidewalk again. They near an Applebee’s, not fancy, but it would get the job done. When Frank starts to wait for the crosswalk to get over to it, Mikey grabs the collar of his own Misfits T-shirt and tugs him back. “We’re not going anywhere they serve alcohol,” he says firmly when Frank questions him. Gerard’s hand spasms in Mikey’s loose grip.

    “Thank you,” he says quietly. Mikey squeezes his hand back and smiles.

    “Really am my brother’s keeper,” he says. Frank snorts.

    They walk for a few more feet, eagle-eyed for a virgin eatery, before Frank tentatively brushes the side of his hand against Gerard’s. He quickly glances over at Frank, and Frank smiles this awkward, nervous smile. Gerard beams back at him and offers his open palm.

    “I guess I wasn’t really paying attention the first time around,” Frank admits, lacing their fingers together. They’d all kind of left Mikey to sew his brother together again, really, rotating shifts to make sure Gerard didn’t choke on his own vomit not withstanding. “Mikey seemed like he had it handled.”

    “I really didn’t,” Mikey admits. He stares down at his feet while they walk. “Broken people keep falling in love with me, and I’m not as good at fixing them as everyone seems to think I am.”

    There’s really no good response to that, not that Frank can think of, anyway. “There’s a Wendy’s over there,” he says instead, pointing diagonally across an intersection.

    “Oh hell yes, frosties,” Gerard says.

    When they shuffle into the fast food establishment the lone cashier gives them a suspicious look. It’s past peak dinner hour, so the trio are the only customers currently dining in. Considering Mikey hasn’t showered in at least four days; Gerard and Frank are babbling about the questionable sanctity of a suicide pact and whether or not breaking it will curse you; and all three of them are still holding hands, Mikey thinks her suspicion is probably warranted. But they really just want food.

    Mikey texts Ray to ask if he and Bob want anything while Gerard and Frank order their food to go. By the time Gerard is done, Ray has texted back with his and Bob’s orders. Frank and Mikey order, and they wait while the three people behind the counter prepare a frankly comical amount of food.

    They walk back to the bus, munching on fries while they go. Gerard is eating a frosty and using is spoon to make points in the argument that he and Frank are having between bites.

    “It’s part of the _appeal_ , Frankie,” Gerard is saying as they walk, gesturing broadly with his plastic cutlery. Mikey grabs the collar of his sweat soaked t-shirt to stop him walking into a pole, and Gerard barely notices. He sticks his spoon back in his cup and goes on. “The main character overacting is a _staple_ in the franchise.”

    “Anakin is _not_ the main character,” Frank says immediately. “Star Wars doesn’t _have_ a main character.”

    “If anyone’s a main character it’s gotta be R2 and C-3PO, right?” Mikey chimes in, pressing the button for a crosswalk. The sidewalk on the other side of this road ends after about ten feet, then they’re back to walking on dry grass. “They’re the only ones to be in every movie.”

    “Anakin is abso _lutely_ the main character!” Gerard splutters. “The entire plot of the last two movies, and arguably the whole _series_ , has revolved around him and his family.”

    “Palpatine’s the main character,” Frank says confidently. This is the point when Mikey realizes this whole thing is just so Frank can wind Gerard up, but Gerard’s not so quick to catch on.

    “How can you even _say tha_ t _?”_ he demands.

    This goes on for the next fifteen minutes it takes for them to walk back to the venue and their bus. Mikey texts Ray that the nerd herd is arriving soon with sustenance when they’re in sight of the gates, and Ray says he and Bob will meet them at the bus.

    “Frank you’re so fucking obtuse,” Gerard rants as they approach the bus. “Hamill was absolutely hamming it up on Lucas’ instructions. I’m almost certain he’s said so himself.”

    “Or he’s just covering his ass for being a bad actor,” Frank argues. He’s playing Devil’s advocate just to see what Gerard does. Mikey knows this, would know it even if it weren’t  obvious to someone deaf dumb and blind, because he doesn’t feel any of the anger or frustration the radiates from Frank when he’s in an _actual_ argument, just satisfied amusement that his game is working.

    “I’ll cover _your_ ass in bruises if you don’t shut the fuck up,” Gerard shoots back, barely noticing how that could be construed. Frank raises his eyebrows and smirks. It’s so different to how Mikey does, so much more predatory.

    “You wanna bruise my ass, Gee?” he asks, leaning in close. He swings an arm around Gerard’s shoulders, his free hand still clutching the food, and Mikey can feel the relayed warmth of Gerard along his arm. “Do you wanna hit your baby brother, hm? He’s just so _annoying_ sometimes, isn’t he?” He bumps the side of his hip against Gerard’s as they walk, their thighs briefly touching. “Don’t you just wanna _slap_ this pretty face sometimes?” He tilts his head and frames his borrowed face with one hand.

    Gerard is blushing red enough to stop traffic, burying his face in his mostly empty cup. “That’s enough, Frankie,” Mikey says, giving him a good-natured shove. “You can’t jump each other out here.”

    “No fucking on, against, or in sight of the bus!” Ray says loudly as he and Bob approach. He gingerly takes the food from Frank’s hand, like if he moves too fast Frank and Gerard will spontaneously makeout. Frank sticks his tongue out at him. Mikey’s done that before, so in theory it’s not super out of character for Mikey’s face. Frank’s so much more _aggressive_ about it, though; Mikey swears his facial muscles will be sore when he gets them back. Ray flips Frank off, and the company heads onto the bus.

\----

The food is sorted and passed out to the appropriate recipients. Frank settles on the couch along with Ray. Bob leans against the wall and sits on the floor, and Mikey and Gerard stand at the tiny counter to eat.

    “You should’ve just gotten your own drink,” Mikey says when Gerard starts slurping down Mikey’s Coke literally as soon as he sets it down on the counter with the bags of food.  Mikey steals a handful of his fries in retaliation.

    “Hey! You have your own!” Gerard whines.

   “It’s not my fault that you never anticipate your own thirst,” Mikey shoots back. He pulls his cup out of Gerard’s reach and takes a long drink from it, and Gerard pouts at him. Mikey rolls his eyes and holds it out for him; Gerard makes a happy noise and takes a slurp from the straw. Mikey smiles this face cracking smile when Gerard kisses him on the cheek after.

    “You guys are disgusting,” Ray says around a mouthful of fries that he quickly swallows. Mikey and Gerard both look over to him, startled. “Oh god, not, like, in a bad way,” he quickly adds, realizing what he’s just said. “I just mean, like, you’re disgustingly in love? I don’t understand how none of us noticed it before now.”

    “Well, it’s not a thought anyone ever really has,” Mikey says. Gerard tucks into his food while Mikey speaks. “It’s like a multiple choice test where the real answer isn’t even an option.” He fiddles around with his ketchup packet while he explains. “So people will tell us that we’re kinda weird or thank us for, like, normalizing brotherly love or male emotion or some shit.” He finally manages to tear through the cheap plastic and empty the sauce packet onto his makeshift plate. “But really I think we might just be a bunch of conservatives’ gay stereotypes in a trenchcoat.” He shrugs and finally starts eating his chicken.

    They talk and eat, and it’s almost normal. Frank has gotten used to seeing blank skin when he looks at his hands by now, and, since he doesn’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing and giving himself away anymore, the conversations flows much more freely. It feels good and right to be hanging out with his best friends again. The contentment radiating from Mikey is a nice touch, as well.

    “So, like, sorry if this is intrusive,” Ray says after a lull in conversation, and everyone in the room knows what his next sentence is going to be about,” but isn’t it weird, fucking your brother? Like, I wouldn’t even be able to keep it up if one of my siblings made a move on me.”

    Gerard sighs and sets down his food, then looks at Mikey who does the same. “It’s not--”Gerard starts, then pauses to bring some order to his thoughts. “It’s just the way we’ve always been.” Bob starts choking on his hamburger, and Gerard quickly amends. “No! Not like--I haven’t been sucking his dick since kindergarten or some shit, but I think I’ve kind of,” he trails off, staring at the counter, not entirely sure how honest he wants to be here. In the end, though, he thinks the truth’s pretty obvious if you bother looking. “I think I’ve sort of always been in love with him.”

    “That’s kinda fucked up,” Ray says.

    “Yeah,” Gerard agrees. Mikey slings an arm around Gerard’s shoulders, and Gerard rests his palm flat against the back of Mikey’s hand that’s now resting on his upper arm. “We’re kinda fucked up.”

\----

    That night, for the first time in far too long, Mikey crawls into Gerard’s bunk to sleep. He’s actually in there before Gerard himself, so he leaves the curtain open and curls up facing the wall, listening to the white noise of the other four men getting ready for bed. Ray is in the bathroom, and Bob is making a pre-sleep snack.

    Frank starts stripping right in the middle of the hall between the front and the bathroom, so everyone has to squeeze behind him if they want to brush their teeth. Gerard doesn’t want to brush his teeth, but Mikey’s bunk is in front of his, so he’ll have to do it anyway. Frank’s jeans are low and open on Mikey’s hips while he fucks around with his blankets, and Gerard is staring. Mikey knows that Frank did this somewhat intentionally, just to see what will happen.

    Gerard takes a step closer, runs his fingers down Frank’s spine. Frank stands up straighter, turns to look at him. “Frankie,” Gerard says,” you’re so--” He brings one hand up to rest against Frank’s face while he speaks, tucking a stray lock of hair back behind his ear and jostling his glasses. He ends with his hand cupping Frank’s jaw. “I--sorry, can I?” Gerard asks, already tilting his face, and Frank nods, leans down to make it that much easier for Gerard to kiss him.

    It’s soft this time, the kiss. Gerard takes his time and really feels out the familiar shape of his brother’s lips. Frank presses one hand softly to the small of Gerard’s back, and Gerard sighs happily against his mouth.

    Mikey can feel the ghost of his brother’s touch, feel the warmth of his hand on Frank’s jaw, the way his free hand is resting on Frank’s arms. He leans out of the bunk so that he can actually _see it,_ too, because seeing himself kissing Gerard is a sight he doesn’t want to miss.

    Gerard pulls away after a few more seconds and runs his thumb absently over Frank’s wet bottom lip. “I think I could be in love with you, too,” he says, barely more than a whisper. Frank closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Gerard’s.

   “I’d like that,” he says at the same volume. His arms tighten where he’s slung them around Gerard’s waist. He presses a kiss to Gerard’s forehead and loosens them again. “Get some sleep, Gee,” he says,” Mikey’s waiting for you.” He tilts his head toward where Mikey is sticking out of the bunk, quite obviously watching.

    Mikey blushes and ducks back into the bunk. Gerard smiles and nods, leans up and presses one more kiss to Frank’s lips before he steps out of Frank’s hold completely. “Goodnight, Frankie,” he says softly.

    “Goodnight, Gee,” Frank says back, just as soft again. Neither one is willing to break the magic of this moment by raising their voice. Gerard smiles at Frank and turns to get into his bunk.

    Mikey rolls over, and Gerard graciously accepts Mikey’s offered, open arms, curling against his chest in the tight space. “Goodnight kisses,” Mikey says, smiling against Gerard’s forehead. “Getting fuckin’ domestic already.” Gerard smiles and snorts against Mikey’s chest. “Better watch out,” Mikey says conspiratorily,” if we’re not careful, soon he’ll be breaking out the frilled aprons.” Gerard snorts again and hits Mikey lightly with his fist.

    “This is gonna work,” Gerard says steadfastly. Mikey presses a kiss to his forehead, then Gerard tilts his face up, and Mikey presses a kiss to his lips, too. Mikey can’t find the words to agree and doesn’t have to heart to start listing all the ways this could go wrong, so he doesn’t say anything, just holds Gerard tighter and hopes to god that his brother is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (the next chapter is already completely written and is mostly porn bc i'm a dumbass who only realized after getting like 5k words in that there needed to be some more plot, so that'll be posted sometime next week probably when i finally proofread it.)


	9. Good Is a Relative

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyway i was gonna edit this and make y'all wait but then i realized that it's literally just porn and doesn't add like a single thing to the plot, so here it is for u guys

    After it’s all said and done, Frank Iero comes up to Pete in the catering tent. Pete had gotten really,  _ spectacularly _ wasted last night, and he’s only out in the daylight because Patrick said he has to live with his mistakes. So wasted was he, in fact, that he’s almost convinced himself that the first half of the night didn’t happen. Joe and Patrick and Andy haven’t mentioned it once. Pete’s holding on to the last shreds of hope when Frank speaks.

    “So,” he starts, trails out the two letter word to unreasonable lengths,” you slept with Gerard?” He’s staring down at the asphalt beneath their feet as he speaks, and Pete really, honestly feels bad, despite Frank being with Mikey. Pete, as upset as he is, had never really believed they were exclusive. Everybody knows that Frank and Gerard are a Thing, a very decidedly non-sexual Thing at this point, but a Thing nonetheless.

    “Yeah,” Pete says. Unsure of how else to respond, he follows with a mumbled,” Sorry.” 

    Frank’s head snaps up. “For what?” he asks. He looks genuinely puzzled, and Pete wonders if he could’ve read the situation wrong.

    “For, y’know,” he waves a hand. “Everyone knows you guys are like,” he makes another flippant, tilting hand gesture. “Sorry if I, uh, fucked that up for you. More than you and Mikey already did, anyway.” It seems to take Frank a moment to understand what Pete is trying to say, but when he finally gets it he does the last thing that Pete expected. He starts  _ laughing  _ so hard that his eyes water and he hunches over in the middle. Partway through, he starts coughing and has to brace his hands on his knees to stay upright. Pete is really starting to feel like an idiot. 

    Frank coughs once more, a great hacking, heaving thing, and straightens back up. “Okay,” he clears his throat when his voice comes out hoarse,” sorry about that. It’s just--that’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve heard all month.” 

    “What the fuck dude?” Pete demands.

    “Me? Of all the people?” Frank snorts. “Of all the people wronged in this situation,” he claps a hand heavily on Pete’s shoulder,”I can assure you, I am not one.” He giggle-snorts again. “You really don’t have anything to apologize for here,” he adds in a slightly more serious tone. “I mean that. And I’m sure Gerard feels the same way.”

    Pete is puzzled by this current encounter. He feels reassured, however, that he has neither intentionally nor unintentionally fucked up somebody else’s relationship. “I know I’ve been blowing you off,” Frank continues. Pete raises an eyebrow at this. Frank has literally always fluctuated somewhere between mild indifference and complete apathy with regard to Pete and his shenanigans, and Pete has done the same for him. That’s like saying you’re ignoring your mom’s second cousin rather than just being oblivious of them. Frank pauses, looks at Pete’s face, and sighs. “I talk too much sometimes,” he says. “Look, just know there’s a lot of fucked up shit going on that’s mostly my fault, okay?”

    “Okay,” Pete says. Frank smiles. It’s a small, sad thing, looks wrong on his face. Pete hesitates a second then says,” Are you alright?” Frank raises his eyebrows like he wasn’t expecting that question, then inhales and blows out a long breath, stalling, probably.

    “Not really,” he says finally. There’s a pause. “Listen, I wasn’t gonna tell you this, but, god, you deserve to know what’s going on. We’ve really kind of fucked you over for a while now.”

    Pete, who considers himself a reasonably observant person and  _ definitely _ more in tune with his emotional state than a lot of people he knows, is incredibly unsettled by this statement. He would like to think that he would notice, at least a little bit, if he’s being fucked over and by whom, but he can’t come up with a single instance where Frank could’ve done something to him. Like, okay, Frank’s apparently been fucking Mikey, but it’s really not Frank’s fault if Mikey made himself available. Anyone would be a fool to not accept that offer. If anything,  _ Mikey’s  _ the most likely candidate for the Fucking-Pete-Over position. He at least knew what he was doing. Frank was just a casualty caught in Mikey’s nerd-sexy blast radius.

    “Hey, if this is about you and Mikey, it’s-I’m  not-we were never--I think he’s more important to me than I am to him, but it’s okay.” He shoves his hands awkwardly in his pockets and stares off at nothing. He hasn't washed his face in a week, hasn’t eaten a vegetable in god knows how long, feels like the biggest lovesick idiot on the entire goddamn planet, isn’t really sure where the pants he wearing have been--they’re crunchy in some places, and he’s sure that the only thing making him look slightly alive is the sunglasses that he stole from Andy before being forced into the open, but no, yeah, he’s good. He’s fine, not breaking down at all. 

    “Pete,” Frank says. Pete looks back over at him, eyebrows raised over his sunglasses. “Pete, I--there’s not really an easy way to say this, but,” Frank sucks in a breath through his teeth, rolls back on his heels and forward again, lets the breath out,”fuck it,  _ I’m  _ Mikey.”

    Pete is not a predictable human being. He is mentally unstable in the purest sense, and on  _ top _ of that he’s just a general asshole. His behavior in general life is volatile and dictated by his mood and the temperature and whether or not he’s getting his dick sucked on a regular basis and, god, the fuckin position of Venus relative to Earth probably. His  _ reactions _ on the other hand--more predictable than Quicksilver in a 100meter dash, and Pete reacts to overwhelming confusion with hysteric laughter. He’s bent at the waist absolutely  _ cackling  _ before his brain even really processes what Frank is implying. 

    “Pete, I’m fucking serious here,” Frank says. He smacks him on the shoulder then wrenches him back upright by gripping the same shoulder. He lowers his voice down into an angry whisper. “A few weeks ago Frank and I fucked, and we woke up in each other’s bodies.”

    “Shoulda pulled out,” Pete says around another bubble of laughter. Frank crosses his arms over his chest and kicks Pete’s shin. “Ow, fucker.” Pete pulls his leg away and rubs at the sore spot with his other foot. He looks over at Frank, at his body language. “Shit, you’re taking this joke seriously dude. Who put you up to it? Was it Mikey? Is there a camera somewhere?”

    “I am Mikey,” Frank insists.

    “Prove it.”

    “Last month you sat in my lap and told me that you wanted to suck me off while Gerard watched,” Frank says evenly,” that you think he’s too possessive of me, and you wanted to prove that you were good for me.” 

    Pete’s entire demeanor changes. His arms fall to his sides, held close to his body; he stands up straighter. “He told you that,” he says, voice tight and angry. “The motherfucker, he said he wouldn’t tell any--”

    “I didn’t tell anyone, Pete!” Frank shouts at him. Heads from all around the catering tent turn to look at them. Everything goes eerily silent as they’re stared at. Pete stares right back.

    “Go about your fuckin’ business, Saporta,” he shouts over at Gabe, who’s halfway out of his chair. He sinks back down in shame, going back to his sad-looking bowl of cereal, and it has the added bonus of making everyone else turn their heads back away. Chatter starts up again slowly.

    Frank steps closer to him. He grabs Pete’s arm and tugs him so that he can speak low and directly into his ear. “You told me that you wanted to tie me up and piss on me and send me to play on stage wet so I wouldn’t forget that on this tour I belong to you.” Yeah, okay, that was a thing Pete had actually said to Mikey, whom Frank was claiming to be, but, again, Mikey could’ve just told Frank those things. It would mean that Mikey is a bigger asshole than Pete could’ve ever imagined, but it’s still possible. Really the only thing that Pete’s one hundred percent sure that Mikey wouldn’t tell someone else is--”And I fucking let you do it,” is near growled against Pete’s ear. 

    Pete’s eyes go wide behind his stolen sunglasses. “Holy fuck,” he whispers, mostly to himself.  He twists his head, looks over at Frank’s face, Frank’s eyes, staring so earnestly at him, but he can’t be Frank. Frank can’t know that. Pete’s brain won’t allow it.

    “Believe me now, asshole?” Pete does, or he wants to, or something. He’s not sure. Frank--Mikey? Mikey. Frank is Mikey, or is Mikey Frank? They’re both each other? Mikey(?) is standing close and holding onto his arm and breathing against his ear, and Pete’s brain is short circuiting for a thousand different reasons. “Pete?” Mikey-Frank shakes him.

    “I--you--what? Yeah,” Pete says. He turns to looks at Mikey again.

    “Oh my god,” Mikey says. He takes a step back, still holding onto Pete’s arm, and looks him up and down. “You’ve got a fucking boner right now don’t you?” Before Pete can answer, Mikey reaches down (he doesn’t have to bend over in this body) and squeezes Pete’s dick through his gross and ridiculously tight pants. “Unbelievable.” 

    “You’re bringing up  _ things _ ,” Pete whines. 

    “My god, you’re a slut,” Mikey says, like he’s realizing it for the first time. He lets go of Pete and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I can’t believe the things I have to put up with.”

    Pete shoves his hands in his hoodie pockets while Mikey--Mikey!--mutters. “So, you’re Mikey,” he finally says. Mikey looks up from rubbing the bridge of his nose and ranting at the ground to stare at Pete instead. “Is this why you haven’t been fucking me?”

    Mikey stares at him, blunt and unwavering, and if Pete still had any doubts about whether or not this were Mikey’s soul--or essence or whatever the fuck it is that makes a human who they are--standing in front of him, it’s entirely dispelled now. Pete’s never seen that level of disdain in a single look from anyone else. “Yes, Pete. Oddly enough, it is.”

    “So you don’t hate me!” Pete says joyously. He wraps his arms around Mikey and squeezes him in an aggressive hug. Pete has had those things perfected for a long time. 

    “I’m starting to,” Mikey mutters into Pete’s shirt. “Just give it some time.”

    Pete laughs and lets go of him. He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck, you’re--god, I’m so relieved,” he says. Another nervous laugh bubbles out of him. “This is the fucking weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

    “Think about what I’ve been going through,” Mikey says. Pete nods, makes an agreeing noise. 

    “Hey, listen, I’m just in here to get coffee.” Pete jerks his thumb over at the drinks. “Do you wanna, like, hangout after? Talk about the drama?” He shoves his hands in his pockets again, shoulders hunched while he awaits the answer.

    Frank’s face smiles Mikey’s smile at him, and Pete feels some part of his body melting. “Sure, dude. We’ve got shit to catch up on or whatever.” Pete does not fist pump in victory and shout like a child, but he wants to.

\----

    They don’t even make it back to the fucking bus. Mikey has Pete up against the side of a van not five seconds after Pete asks,” So have you, like, fucked in that body yet? I bet it’s a fuckin’ trip.” It’s harder for Mikey to cage him in now that he’s the same height as Pete.

    Mikey kisses him hard. Any really,  _ really _ persistent bits of doubt are thoroughly removed from his mind now, because Pete knows this kiss, even if the shape of the lips is different, and, oh, right, Frank has a lip ring. That’s fun. Pete runs his tongue over Mikey’s bottom lip, flicks the ring back and forth. Mikey groans and pulls away from the kiss.

    “Yes, I have. Frankie’s cock is so good, Pete.” He yanks Pete’s hoodie aside so he can get his mouth on the sweat-salt skin of Pete’s neck. He bites down hard and then kisses it better when Pete whines and bucks. “‘S shorter than you’re used to, baby, but so fucking  _ fat.” _

   Mikey punctuates his sentence by grinding his knee up against Pete’s dick. Pete whimpers, presses himself down against it. “Fuck,” he gasps, throwing his head back against the metal.

    “You want it?” Mikey growls against Pete’s ear. Fuck, Pete will never tell Mikey this, but Frank’s voice is even hotter than his when it goes low and dangerous. He jerks his knee up again so Pete gets hit with a wave of pleasurepain and moans loudly. “Does baby want a new cock? Tired of the Ways’?”

    Pete doesn’t get halfway through,”Could never get tired of you, Mikey,” before they’re interrupted. Apparently the van’s owners have returned, and they’re yelling. Pete recognizes them as the Relient K guys. He figures that they’re probably the only three guys on tour who wouldn’t be cussing him out right now. They don’t cuss.

    “What the heck, guys?” one of them finally speaks, rather than just unintelligible shouting. “On our van? Really?”

    One of them has covered his eyes with both hands, and the other looks to be in a state of complete shock. Pete speaks over Mikey’s shoulder to the one who was talking. He doesn’t know their names to go with their faces, but he knows that there are two Matts, so he’s got a sixty-six point infinite sixes chance of being right.

    “Hey, uh, Matt.” He waves one hand, taking it off of Mikey’s waist to do so. The guy doesn’t correct him, so he figures he must be right.  “Fancy seeing you guys here.” Mikey has buried his face into Pete’s neck in what  _ looks  _ like a bashful gesture, but in actuality he’s quietly biting and licking at Pete’s skin while he talks. It’s really interfering with Pete’s ability to be charismatic and talk his way out of bad situations. “We were just, uh--

    “Please leave,” Matt says, cutting him off. “None of us want to be here right now.”

    “Okay, yeah,” Pete nods. He wraps his hand around Mike's wrist; they’re thicker than Mikey’s body’s. Mikey eases his weight off of him and lets Pete tug them both in the direction of his bus.

    “Bye guys,” Mikey says in Frank’s little shit voice. He even waves back at them and blows a kiss. They look concerned.

    So does Pete, probably, for different reasons, though. That was way too in-character for Frank’s body. “Being in there is messing with your head,” Pete says to him. 

    “No shit, Sherlock,” Mikey says back, somewhat out of breath. He’s struggling to keep up with Pete’s quick pace, something that never would’ve happened before. “You takin me back to your bus?” he asks as they go. Pete nods absentmindedly and keeps walking. Mikey tugs on his wrist, makes him stop and leans in close. “Gonna let me push you down and spread you wide fucking open?” 

    They’ve weaved their way partly through the parking lot--paved, this time, and there are people on all sides of them.  Some of them stare when Pete moans like he’s dying; some of them don’t. He has the decency to blush profusely and start walking again. They’re almost there.

    “Get out,” Pete announces to the bus at large when he arrives with _Frank_ _fucking Iero_ draped over his back, lazily kissing his neck. Andy is stretched out across the couch with his head in Patrick’s lap, and Joe is sitting leaned against one of Patrick’s legs. They were having a lovely time before Pete burst in.

    Patrick bangs his head back against the couch and groans, annoyed. “Another one,really? If you trail Ray Toro in here after your ass next I’m quitting the fucking band,” he says. 

    “What about Bob?” Joe asks from the floor. Patrick mimes throwing up, and Andy giggles.

    “I will suck his dick right now,” Pete threatens. He drags Frank forward so he can get a hand on his crotch. Patrick groans again and pushes Andy out of his lap. 

    “Why don’t you just shove all their dicks in you at once?” he mutters, petting Joe’s hair as he stands. “Get it out of your system.”

    Pete shrugs and honest to god starts giving Frank an over-the-pants handjob while he talks. “Hey, if you want to arrange a My Chem gangbang for me I’ll be there with a camera to catch the moment that Bob decks you in the pretty face.”

    “You’re fucking insufferable,” Patrick complains. “We could just stay here. You can’t physically move all of us.”

    “I’ll piss in your bunk again.” 

    “I’ll burn your notebooks.”

    “I’ll take your hats.”

    “I’ll suck Mikey’s dick.”

    “You  _ wouldn’t _ ,” Pete says.

    “He’d let me,” Patrick counters. he crosses his arms over his chest. “You picked a really whorey boyfriend.” Frank makes a noise against Pete’s shoulder and bucks up into his hand. “Oh my god,” Patrick mutters in disbelief.

    Andy, ever the band’s mediator, comes up behind Patrick and throws an arm around his shoulder. “C’mon, Trick.” He tugs gently, and Patrick, with a great, heaving sigh, allows himself to be moved toward the door. Pete shoves Frank up against the wall so that they can shuffle by, and also so he can start kissing him, because Pete Wentz is a fucking bastard. At the top of the steps, Patrick remembers.

    “Joe!” he shouts back into the bus. “Come on. The whole fucking world needs to stop so that Pete can get his dick wet.” There are scrambling noises from the bus a few seconds before Joe brushes uncomfortably close past Pete and Frank and appears by the door. 

    They all three shuffle out in an undignified manner, Patrick being last and slamming the door as much as one can slam a bus door. Joe loops an arm around either of them and says,” so we’re totally crashing on the My Chem bus, right?” 

    Patrick grabs Joe’s head and pulls it over so he can leave a comically dramatic kiss on his cheek. “You’re a genius.” Joe snorts and twists his arm around to ruffle his hair.

    “Onward, then!” Joe says, pointing with the hand that’s over Andy’s shoulder. The three of them set off to, hopefully, find a bus that they won’t get kicked off of.

    Back inside their ill-gotten lair, Pete has pulled Mikey’s pants open so that he can get his hand fully around the cock he was promised. “Fuck,” Mikey says, canting his hips up into the touch. Pete’s feeling him out, getting a handle on how this body likes things. Pete moves his hand down, squeezes, and Mikey throws his head back against the wall.

    Pete’s got his teeth sunk into Mikey’s neck, and he moans when he realizes that he can’t close the loop of his fingers around the cock in his hands.“I fucking need this in me,” he pants against Mikey’s neck,” now.” 

    “Gonna split you in half,” Mikey pants above him. “Biggest thing you’ve ever had, Pete. Swear to god.” He slides one hand down the back of Pete’s pants and squeezes his ass, brushes his middle finger over his hole. It’s dry; he definitely can’t get it in, but he presses anyway, just for the way that Pete’s hips jerk up against it. He’s panting against Mikey’s neck now, clutching onto his shirt with both hands. 

    Mikey backs Pete up away from the wall, turns him around so that he can shove Pete down onto his knees on the couch. Pete lets Mikey pull his shirt off, then braces his hands against the wall. “You’re so fucking pretty,” Mikey says, splaying his hands out across Pete’s lower back. He leans forward, hooks his hands around Pete’s waist. He slots himself against Pete’s back and rests his forehead between Pete’s shoulder blades. 

    “Fuck. Missed you.” It’s not a complete lie, and Mikey knows it’ll make Pete happier in the long run than the full truth. Mikey missed Pete because Frank is too fucking dominant. He’s bitchy and pushy and bodily moves Mikey when he wants to; Mikey  _ hates  _ it and kind of loves it. Pete, though, is desperate for someone to tell him what to do and how to do it and that he’s doing it right. God’s own ball gag couldn’t stop Pete from being mouthy, but he’s so fucking  _ needy _ that he’ll do whatever you tell him. That’s what Mikey’s missed.

    Pete whines, presses his ass back against Mikey, arches his back in a way that would be hot as hell if Mikey could see it. Mikey moves his hand, grips tight to one of Pete’s jutting hipbones. “Lube,” Mikey says against Pete’s skin. 

    “Usual place,” Pete pants back. Mikey stands up, and Pete slumps against the back of the couch and the wall, whines at the loss of contact. 

    “Pants,” Mikey says, tugging at Pete’s belt. Pete makes an agreeable noise and moves one hand down to mess with his jeans while Mikey walks to the bunks. Pete, like any good rockstar, keeps his lube under his pillow, and Mikey fishes it out of the familiar hiding place before going back to Pete.

    He’s satisfyingly naked now, kneeling as before on the couch. Hs legs are spread open, and his cock and balls are hanging low and hard between them. Mikey runs his borrowed fingers reverentially from the curve of his knee up the inside of his thigh, stops with a handful of Pete’s ass.

    “God, you’re so fucking pretty,” he says, tugging until he can see Pete’s hole. Pete fucking  _ presents _ to him, arching his back down low and raising his ass up. God, Mikey wants to taste him. He sets the lube down next to Pete’s foot and spreads his ass with both hands. “Wonder what this feel like with a lip ring,” he says right before he leans down and swipes his tongue from the start of Pete’s balls up his taint and ending at his hole.

    Pete gasps and presses against Mikey’s face. “Feels good,” he answers as Mikey starts to tongue him open. There are really very few things that Mikey enjoys more than eating someone out, and he puts his fucking all into it right now. Frank’s tongue isn’t as long as Mikey’s, but his mouth opens wider before his jaw starts to ache. Mikey steadily works his tongue against Pete’s hole, rubs against it with a finger every now and then, presses until Pete’s whining, panting, begging for it, then he pulls away and goes back in with his mouth. Finally, when Pete’s whiteknuckling the couch so hard that his wrists ache, Mikey points his tongue and presses  _ in.  _

    “Fuck, fuck, mother _ fucker _ ,” Pete gasps, reaching back and grabbing a fistfull of Mikey’s hair. Mikey smiles--which is really hard to do with your tongue inside of someone; he loves when Pete gets loud. “Fucking good, so fucking good. Shit!” Mikey reaches a hand forward and squeezes Pete’s balls. “Mikey, mikeyway, fuck.”

    Mikey pulls his mouth away and reaches for the lube, coats three fingers and rubs them over Pete’s hole. “Please,” Pete gasps when his middle finger catches on the rim. Mikey smirks and relents, presses his pointer finger into Pete. He bears back on it, groans happily when Mikey crooks his finger. “More,” he gasps, head falling forward against the wall. Mikey’s middle finger slides in next to the first one. Not ten seconds later Pete is gasping for a third, and Mikey obligingly presses it into him.

   The stretch is finally satisfying, and Pete rocks against Mikey’s crooked fingers, dragging them over his prostate. Mikey leans down and runs his tongue around the stretch of his fingers, holds Pete’s ass open with his free hand so he can get his mouth in there. Pete groans, reaches down and squeezes his cock, ruts his hips into his hand.

    Mikey moves then, presses a kiss to the small of Pete’s back and grabs his hips again, smearing lube on his skin. He tugs, presses the bulge of his cock up against Pete’s ass. “You want it?” he says, because this is how he and Pete work. They run on porno dialogue and the illusion of emotions. 

    “‘S so weird to hear that in Frank’s voice,” Pete mumbles. Mikey slaps his ass. “Fuck!”

    “Our extenuating circumstances aside,” he says. He leans forward, lording over Pete while he presses on the now red skin of his ass. “I asked you a question, Wentz.” 

    “Shit, yeah,” Pete says. He turns his head to the side, bears his neck. “Fucking want it, Mikey.” Mikey leans forward and bites the skin of Pete’s shoulder, grinds harder against his ass.

    “Gonna have to do better than that, baby,” he teases against his skin.  “I know you can.”  Pete huffs, like a brat, then whines, like a bitch, when Mikey spanks him again. “I’m waiting.”

    “I want it, mikeyway. I want you to fuck me.” He arches his back, moves his hips, mimes the movement that he wants. “Need it. Need you to make me fucking  _ cry _ .” He yelps a little bit when Mikey’s fingers brush over his hole again.

    “God, you're such a whore,” Mikey says fondly. He rubs at Pete’s rim for a moment more before he speaks again. “I  _ guess  _ I could do that for you,” he says with faked apathy.

    “Oh, like you’re not dying to know what my ass feels like with that thing,” Pete mumbles. Mikey presses the head of his cock up against Pete, presses it  _ in.  _  “Oh fuck, yeah, yeah.” Pete rocks back against it, but Mikey grips his hips and makes him stay still, makes him take it slow. 

    Frankie’s cock is best appreciated slowly anyway, Mikey knows. Pete’s learning that now, as Mikey slowly presses their hips together he can feel every centimeter sliding into him, stretching him from the inside out. They both groan when the widest part slides in, and soon after Pete’s ass is snug against the birds on Mikey’s hand-me-down hips. 

    It’s good; it’s so fucking good. Pete is tight around him, squeezing every couple of seconds while he adjusts. “You’re super accepting of this situation,” Mikey says. He’s leant over Pete’s back, hands braced on the wall. Normally this position would put Mikey in just the right spot to bite the meat of Pete’s shoulder and kiss his neck, but with the reduction in his height now his head is about level with Pete’s shoulder blades. 

    Pete moves his hips forward slightly, experimentally. He moves until he’s stretched around the widest part of the shaft again, then  presses back, and they both moan. “I figure I probably OD’ed on something,” Pete says back. “You should totally start moving, by the way.” He shimmies his hips to demonstrate. Mikey moves one hand to Pete’s hip and slowly pulls most of the way out, then pushes back in at the same pace. He wants Pete to relish the stretch. 

    “If this is a-ah, ah, okay yeah that’s good.” Pete’s cut off by his own noises of pleasure. He drops his head down low between his shoulders; the effort of keeping it up is too much with Mikey dragging that thing in and out of him. Never one to be shut up for long, though, a few moments of open mouthed panting later, Pete manages to keep talking. “If this is a trip, might as well make it a good one,” Mikey presses kisses to the back of Pete’s shoulders while he’s talking,” and--uh, mm, yeah, shit--and if this is hell then everybody got it wrong.”

    Mikey snorts against the sweaty skin of Pete’s back. “Stop talking while I’m fucking you,” he says. To punctuate the sentence, he pulls out slowly then quickly pushes back in, making Pete cry out wordlessly. “There’s better things to do with your mouth.” 

    “What, you want me to suck my own cock?” Pete snaps back. Mikey slaps his ass, and he goes satisfyingly wordless. He tilts his head up and speaks toward Pete’s ear.

    “I want you to tell me how good it feels.” He slowly slides his hand from Pete’s hip to his cock, wraps a loose fist around him. Pete pants and rocks his hips slightly, like he can’t help it. “Want you to use those words you love so fucking much and tell me how much you like when I fuck you.” His other hand slides around, rests low on Pete’s stomach and presses him back against Mikey.

    “Feels good,” Pete says back. “That what you wanna hear, baby? Want me to tell you how good your cock feels? How it’s splitting me open?”

    “Yeah,” Mikey says against Pete’s sweaty skin. “That’s good. Fuck, you’re so good for me.”  He nuzzles his forehead into Pete’s shoulder. Pete whines and bucks his hips more into Mikey’s fist. “You gonna come?”

    “Want to,” Pete replies. “Need more.” Mikey tightens his hand around Pete’s cock and starts fucking him faster, harder. Pete keens and tries to dig his fingernails into the bus wall. Mikey can feel the way his cock twitches in his hand when he comes. Pete slumps forward, his whole body held up by his chest leaning against the wall.

    “You got it all over the couch,” Mikey says faked disappointment. He hasn’t stopped fucking Pete, and the other man is making desperate, pained noises. “Your band’s gonna be pissed.” He pushes himself further upright with one hand and grabs Pete’s ass with the other. “Petey couldn’t keep it together,” he says as he kneads the flesh he’s holding. Pete’s too fucked out to speak or he’d be defending himself, Mikey’s sure. For now though, he enjoys the wordless noises of the man beneath him. 

    Pete’s so goddamn  _ pliable _ like this. Mikey could just hold him down and fuck him, bite until it hurts, bruise his hips, and Pete wouldn’t do  _ anything.  _ He’d chew the fuck out of Mikey later, but now,  _ right now,  _ Mikey can do whatever he wants. Pete will let him. 

    He grabs the back of Pete’s neck in one hand and presses him down into the couch, forces his back to arch pleasingly. “Good, you’re so fucking  _ good,”  _ he mumbles nonsensically while he jackrabbits his hips against Pete’s ass. “So good, Pete. Open and ready and so fucking--fuck fuck fuck.” 

    Pete groans into the couch when Mikey’s hips still inside him and then start to twitch. Pete’s not generally a cumdumpster. He gives his heart away easier than his ass, so the sensation of someone coming inside of him is still new and kind of weird and so fucking hot it should be illegal. He might be screaming into the cushion under his face; he’s not really sure.

    The weight of Mikey-in-Frank’s-body slumps down on top of him, and Pete’s breath whooshes out of him. He sucks it all back in again, sharply, when Mikey slowly pulls that fucking Coke can of a cock out of his, frankly very sensitive, ass. 

    When it’s out, Pete lets himself fall over to the side, head resting on the arm of the couch. Mikey follows suit, just sort of lying halfway on top of Pete. He makes some kind of happy noise and awkwardly tries to spoon with his newly shorter frame. ‘Cause Mikey might be a committally challenged headcase, but he’s not an  _ asshole.  _ When you shove your dick (or someone else’s) inside another person you hold them after. It’s proper etiquette.

    Pete sighs and settles into the embrace, puts one hand over Mikey’s on his stomach. “We good, mikeyway?” he asks.

    Mikey really can’t answer that honestly, or with any sort of certainty. They both know that this isn’t going to last. It  _ can’t last.  _ They’re dying with the summer heat, and Mikey knows that it’s breaking Pete’s heart. But that’s not what Pete’s asking right now. So Mikey tightens his hold and says in the wrong voice,” Yeah, Pete. We’re good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see u guys in another six months i guess


End file.
